THE  GIFT  OF 
MAY  TREAT  MORRISON 
IN  MEMORY  OF 
ALEXANDER  F  MORRISON 


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$  n  r  a  I    f  §  5  a  |  s 


NEW  YORK  : 
LEAVITT    &  ALLEN 

18.57. 


RURAL  ESSAYS. 


BY 

A.  J.  DOWNING. 


EDITED,  "WITH  A  MEMOIR  OF  THE  AUTHOR. 

BY 

GEORGE  WILLIAM  CURTIS, 

AND 

A  LETTER  TO  HIS  FRIENDS, 

BY 

FREDERIKA  BREMER. 


NEW  YORK : 
LEAVITT  &  ALLEN, 

879  BROADWAY. 
1857. 


Entered,  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1853,  by 

GEORGE  P.  PUTNAM  &  CO., 

in  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  the  United  States  for  the 
Southern  District  of  New-Xork. 


JOHN  F.  TRJW, 
Printer  and  Stereotypkr, 
379  Broadway. 


PREFACE. 


rpHIS  posthumous  volume  completes  the  series  of  Mr. 

Downing's  works.  It  comprises,  with  one  or  two  ex- 
ceptions, all  his  editorial  papers  in  the  "  Horticulturist/' 
The  Editor  has  preferred  to  retain  their  various  temporary 
allusions,  because  they  serve  to  remind  the  reader  of  the 
circumstances  under  which  the  articles  were  prepared. 
Mr.  Downing  had  designed  a  work  upon  the  Shade-Trees  of 
the  United  States,  but  left  no  notes  upon  the  subject. 

In  the  preparation  of  the  memoir,  the  Editor  has  been 
indebted  to  a  sketch  in  the  Knickerbocker  Magazine,  by 
Mrs.  Monell,  of  Newburgh,  to  Mr.  Wilder' s  eulogy  before 
the  Pomological  Congress,  and  to  an  article  in  the  "  New- 
York  Quarterly,"  by  Clarence  Cook,  Esq. 

The  tribute  to  the  genius  and  character  of  Downing 


434330 


IV  PREFACE. 

by  Miss  Bremer,  although  addressed  to  all  his  friends,  has 
the  unreserved  warmth  of  a  private  letter.  No  man  has 
lived  in  vain  who  has  inspired  such  regard  in  such  a 
woman. 

New-Yobk,  April,  1853. 


CONTENTS. 


TA.Ha 

MEMOIRS  » 

LETTER  FROM  MISS  BREMER  M 


HORTICULTURE. 

L  Introductory    .......  3 

II.  Hints  on  Flower-Gardens  .                   .         .  .  6 

HI.  Influence  of  Horticulture     .         .         .  .  .13 

TV.  A  Talk  with  Flora  and  Pomona   .          .          .  .  18 

V.  A  Chapter  on  Roses    .          .          .         ,  .          .  24 

VI.  A  Chapter  on  Green-Houses        ...  35 

VII.  On  Feminine  Taste  in  Rural  Affairs  ...  .44 

VHI.  Economy  in  Gardening      ....  55 

IX.  A  Look  about  us         .          .          .          .  .  60 

X.  A  Spring  Gossip     ......  65 

XI.  The  Great  Discovery  in  Vegetation  .  .         .  12 

XII.  State  and  Prospects  of  Horticulture      ' .         .  .  77 

XIII.  American  vs.  British  Horticulture    .         .  ,  .83 

XIV.  On  the  Drapery  of  Cottages  and  Gardens         .  .  88 


CONTENTS. 


LANDSCAPE  GARDENING. 

PAGB 

L  The  Philosophy  of  Rural  Taste        .         .  .  101 

IL  The  Beautiful  in  Ground            .          .          .          .  106 

ILL  Hints  to  Rural  Improvers      .          .          .          .  .110 

IV.  A  few  Hints  on  Landscape  Gardening      .          .          .  119 

V.  On  the  Mistakes  of  Citizens  in  Country  Life           .  .  123 

VL  Citizens  retiring  to  the  Country  .          .          .          .  131 

V1L  A  Talk  about  Public  Parks  and  Gardens       .          .  .138 

VHI.  The  New- York  Park         .                 ,  .                    .  147 

IX.  Public  Cemeteries  and  Public  Gardens         .          .  .154 

X.  How  to  choose  a  Site  for  a  Country-Seat           .          .  160 

XL  How  to  arrange  Country  Places        .          .          .  .166 

XTL  The  Management  of  large  Country  Places  .  .  172 
XHI.  Country  Places  in  Autumn     .....  177 

XIY.  A  Chapter  on  Lawns         .....  181 

XV.  Mr  Tudor's  Garden  at  Nahant         .          .          .  .188 

XV L  A  Visit  to  Montgomery  Place       .          ...          .  192 

RURAL  ARCHITECTURE. 

L  A  Few  Words  on  Rural  Architecture     .          .          .  205 

H.  Moral  Influence  of  Good  Houses      ....  209 

ILL  A  few  Words  on  our  Progress  in  Building         .          .  214 

IV.  Cockneyism  in  the  Country     .          .          .          .          .  224 

V.  On  the  Improvements  of  Country  Villages  .  .  229 
VL  Our  Country  Villages           .....  236 

VH.  On  Simple  Rural  Cottages  ....  244 

VHL  On  the  Color  of  Country  Houses  ....  252 
IX  A  short  Chapter  on  Country  Churches    .  .  .  260 

X  A  Chapter  on  School-Houses  .....  265 
XL  How  to  Build  Ice-Houses  ,  .  ,271 

XLL  The  Favorite  Poison  of  America       .         .         .  .278 

TREES. 

L  The  Beautiful  in  a  Tree  ....  289 
LL  How  to  Popularize  the  Taste  for  Planting        .  .  293 

4 


CONTENTS. 

vii 

PAOM 

in. 

On  Planting  Shade-Trees       >         •         ■         •  ■ 

299 

IV. 

Trees  in  Towns  and  Villages       •         •         »  • 

303 

V. 

Shade-Trees  in  Cities           •         •         •         •  • 

311 

VL 

Rare  Evergreen  Trees     *         .         «         .  . 

819 

VII. 

A  Word  in  Favor  of  Evergreens               •         ••  • 

32*7 

VHI. 

The  Chinese  Magnolias  ..... 

335 

IX. 

The  Neglected  American  Plants  .... 

339 

X. 

The  Art  of  Transplanting  Trees  .         «.         .  . 

343 

XI. 

On  Transplanting  Large  Trees        .         .         .  . 

349 

XIL 

A  Chapter  on  Hedges      •          •         •          •  • 

35? 

xm. 

On  th  v.  Employment  of  Ornamental  Trees  and  Shrubs  in  North 

America  ....... 

3*74 

AGRICULTURE. 

i. 

V^ULtI  V  ATORS,  X  HE  IjrREAT  XNDUSTEIAL  OLASS  OF  AMERICA  • 

385 

ii. 

The  National  Ignorance  of  the  Agricultural  Interest  . 

390 

in. 

The  Home  Education  of  the  Rural  Districts  . 

396 

IV. 

How  to  enrich  the  Son,  ..... 

404 

V. 

A  Chapter  on  Agricultural  Schools  .... 

410 

VI. 

A  Few  "Words  on  the  Kitchen  Garden 

416 

vn. 

A  Chat  in  the  Kitchen  Garden  .... 

421 

VIII. 

Washington,  the  Farmer 

427 

FRUIT. 

i. 

A  Few  Words  on  Fruit  Culture  .... 

435 

TT 

The  Fruits  in  Convention  ..... 

442 

m. 

The  Philosophy  of  Manuring  Orchards  . 

452 

IV. 

The  Vineyards  of  the  West         .         .  '  . 

463 

v. 

On  the  Improvement  of  Vegetable  Races 

468 

LETTERS  FROM  ENGLAND. 

L 

Warwick  Castle:  Kenilworth:  Stratford-on-Avon 

475 

n. 

Kew-Gardens  :  New  Houses  of  Parliament  :  A  Nobleman's 

Seat  ....... 

485 

m. 

Chatsworth     .         .         .         .         .         .  . 

497 

viii 


CONTENTS. 


PAG* 

IV.  English  Travelling  :  Haddon  Hall  :  Matlook  :  The  Derby 

Arboretum  :  Botanic  Garden  in  Eegent's  Park     .  510 

V.  The  Isle  of  Wight      ......  522 

VL  Woburn  Abbey      .                   .         .         .  532 

VII.  Dropmore. — English  Eallways. — Society      .         .  538 

VLII.  The  London  Parks           ...  64*7 


MEMOIR 


MEMOIR. 


ANDKEW  JACKSON  DOWNING  was  born  at  New- 
burgh,  upon  the  Hudson,  on  the  spot  where  he  always 
lived,  and  which  he  always  loved  more  than  any  other,  on 
the  30th  of  October,  1815.  His  father  and  mother  were 
both  natives  of  Lexington,  Massachusetts,  and,  upon  their 
marriage,  removed  to  Orange  County,  New- York,  where 
they  settled,  some  thirty  or  forty  miles  from  Newburgh. 
Presently,  however,  they  came  from  the  interior  of  the 
county  to  the  banks  of  the  river.  The  father  built  a  cot- 
tage upon  the  highlands  of  Newburgh,  on  the  skirts  of 
the  tswn,  and  there  his  five  children  were  born.  He  had 
begun  life  as  a  wheelwright,  but  abandoned  the  trade 
to  become  a  nurseryman,  and  after  working  prosperously 
in  his  garden  for  twenty-one  years,  died  in  1822. 

Andrew  was  born  many  years  after  the  other  children. 
He  was  the  child  of  his  parents'  age,  and,  for  that  reason, 
very  dear.  He  began  to  talk  before  he  could  walk,  when 
he  was  only  nine  months  old,  and  the  wise  village  gossips 
shook  their  heads  in  his  mother's  little  cottage,  and  pro- 
phesied a  bright  career  for  the  precocious  child.  At  eleven 
months  that  career  manifestly  began,  in  the  gossips'  eyes, 
by  his  walking  bravely  about  the  room  :  a  handsome, 


xii 


MEMOIR. 


cheerful,  intelligent  child,  but  quiet  and  thoughtful,  pet- 
ted by  the  elder  brothers  and  sister,  standing  sometimes 
in  the  door,  as  he  grew  older,  and  watching  the  shadows 
of  the  clouds  chase  each  other  over  the  Fishkill  mountains 
upon  the  opposite  side  of  the  river  ;  soothed  by  the  uni- 
versal silence  of  the  country,  while  the  constant  occupation 
of  the  father,  and  of  the  brother  who  worked  with  him  in 
the  nursery,  made  the  boy  serious,  by  necessarily  leaving 
him  much  alone. 

In  the  little  cottage  upon  the  Newburgh  highlands, 
looking  down  upon  the  broad  bay  which  the  Hudson  river 
there  makes,  before  winding  in  a  narrow  stream  through 
the  highlands  of  West  Point,  and  looking  eastward  across 
the  river  to  the  Fishkill  hills,  which  rise  gradually  from 
the  bank  into  a  gentle  mountain  boldness,  and  northward, 
up  the  river,  to  shores  that  do  not  obstruct  the  horizon, — 
passed  the  first  years  of  the  boy's  life,  thus  early  befriend- 
ing him  with  one  of  the  loveliest  of  landscapes.  While  his 
father  and  brother  were  pruning  and  grafting  their  trees, 
and  the  other  brother  was  busily  at  work  in  the  comb  fac- 
tory, where  he  was  employed,  the  young  Andrew  ran  alone 
about  the  garden,  playing  his  solitary  games  in  the  pre- 
sence of  the  scene  whose  influence  helped  to  mould  his  life, 
and  which,  even  so  early,  filled  his  mind  with  images  of 
rural  beauty.  His  health,  like  that  of  most  children  born 
in  their  parents'  later  years,  was  not  at  all  robust.  The 
father,  watching  the  slight  form  glancing  among  his  trees, 
and  the  mother,  aware  of  her  boy  sitting  silent  and 
thoughtful,  had  many  a  pang  of  apprehension,  which 
was  not  relieved  by  the  ominous  words  of  the  gossips 
that  it  was  "hard  to  raise  these  smart  children," — the 
homely  modern  echo  of  the  old  Greek  fancy,  "  Whom  the 
gods  love  die  young." 


MEMOIR. 


xiii 


The  mother,  a  thrifty  housekeeper  and  a  religious  wo- 
man, occupied  with  her  many  cares,  cooking,  mending, 
scrubbing,  and  setting  things  to  rights,  probably  looked 
forward  with  some  apprehension  to  the  future  condition 
of  her  sensitive  Benjamin,  even  if  he  lived.  The  dreamy, 
shy  ways  of  the  boy  were  not  such  as  indicated  the  stern 
stuff  that  enables  poor  men's  children  to  grapple  with  the 
world.  Left  to  himself,  his  will  began  to  grow  imperious. 
The  busy  mother  could  not  severely  scold  her  ailing  child  ; 
but  a  sharp  rebuke  had  probably  often  been  pleasanter  to 
him  than  the  milder  treatment  that  resulted  from  affec- 
tionate compassion,  but  showed  no  real  sympathy.  It 
is  evident,  from  the  tone  in  which  he  always  spoke  of 
his  childhood,  that  his  recollections  of  it  were  not  alto- 
gether agreeable.  It  was  undoubtedly  clouded  by  a  want 
of  sympathy,  which  he  could  not  understand  at  the  time, 
but  which  appeared  plainly  enough  when  his  genius  came_ 
into  play.  It  is  the  same  kind  of  clouded  childhood  that  j 
so  often  occurs  in  literary  biography,  where  there  was  great 
mutual  affection  and  no  ill  feeling,  but  a  lack  of  that  in- 
stinctive apprehension  of  motives  and  aims,  which  makes 
each  one  perfectly  tolerant  of  each  other. 

"When  Andrew  was  seven  years  old,  his  father  died, 
and  his  elder  brother  succeeded  to  the  management  of  the 
nursery  business.  Andrew's  developing  tastes  led  him  to 
the  natural  sciences,  to  botany  and  mineralogy.  As  he 
grew  older  he  began  to  read  the  treatises  upon  these  favor- 
ite subjects,  and  went,  at  length,  to  an  academy  at  Mont- 
gomery, a  town  not  far  from  Newburgh,  and  in  the  same 
county.  Those  who  remember  him  here,  speak  of  him  as 
a  thoughtful,  reserved  boy,  looking  fixedly  out  of  his  large, 
dark  brown  eyes,  and  carrying  his  brow  a  little  inclined 
forward,  as  if  slightly  defiant.    He  was  a  poor  boy,  and 


xiv 


MEMOIR. 


very  proud.  Doubtless  that  indomitable  will  had  already 
resolved  that  he  should  not  be  the  least  of  the  men  that 
he  and  his  schoolfellows  would  presently  become.  He 
was  shy,  and  made  few  friends  among  the  boys.  He  kept 
his  own  secrets,  and  his  companions  do  not  remember  that 
he  gave  any  hint,  while  at  Montgomery  Academy,  of  his 
peculiar  power.  Neither  looking  backward  nor  forward, 
was  the  prospect  very  fascinating  to  his  dumb,  and  proba- 
bly a  little  dogged,  ambition.  Behind  were  the  few  first 
years  of  childhood,  sickly,  left  much  alone  in  the  cottage 
and  garden,  with  nothing  in  those  around  him  (as  he  felt 
without  knowing  it)  that  strictly  sympathized  with  him  ; 
and  yet,  as  always  in  such  cases,  of  a  nature  whose  devel- 
opment craved  the  most  generous  sympathy :  these  few 
years,  too,  cast  among  all  the  charms  of  a  landscape  which 
the  Fishkill  hills  lifted  from  littleness,  and  the  broad  river 
inspired  with  a  kind  of  grandeur  ;  years,  which  the  univer- 
sal silence  of  the  country,  always  so  imposing  to  young 
imaginations,  and  the  rainbow  pomp  of  the  year,  as  it 
came  and  went  up  and  down  the  river-banks  and  over  the 
mountains,  and  the  general  solitude  of  country  life,  were 
not  very  likely  to  enliven.  Before,  lay  a  career  of  hard 
work  in  a  pursuit  which  rarely  enriches  the  workman,  with 
little  apparent  promise  of  leisure  to  pursue  his  studies  or 
to  follow  his  tastes.  It  is  natural  enough,  that  in  the 
midst  of  such  prospects,  the  boy,  delicately  organized  to 
appreciate  his  position,  should  have  gone  to  his  recitations 
and  his  play  in  a  very  silent — if  not  stern — manner,  all 
the  more  reserved  and  silent  for  the  firm  resolution  to 
master  and  not  be  mastered.  It  is  hard  to  fancy  that  he 
was  ever  a  blithe  boy.  The  gravity  of  maturity  came 
early  upon  him.  Those  who  saw  him  only  in  later  years 
can,  probably,  easily  see  the  boy  at  Montgomery  Academy, 


MEMOIR. 


XV 


by  fancying  him  quite  as  they  knew  him,  less  twenty  or 
twenty-five  years.  One  by  one,  the  boys  went  from  the 
academy  to  college,  or  into  business,  and  when  Andrew 
was  sixteen  years  old,  he  also  left  the  academy  and  return- 
ed home. 

He,  too,  had  been  hoping  to  go  to  college;  but  the 
family  means  forbade.  His  mother,  anxious  to  see  him 
early  settled,  urged  him,  as  his  elder  brothers  were 
both  doing  well  in.  business — the  one  as  a  nurseryman, 
and  the  other,  who  had  left  the  comb  factory,  practis- 
ing ably  and  prosperously  as  a  physician — to  enter  as 
a  clerk  into  a  drygoods  store.  That  request  explains 
the  want  of  delight  with  which  he  remembered  his 
childhood  :  because  it  shows  that  his  good,  kind  mother, 
in  the  midst  of  her  baking,  and  boiling,  and  darning  the 
children's  stockings,  made  no  allowance — as  how  should 
she,  not  being  able  to  perceive  them — for  the  possibly 
very  positive  tastes  of  her  boy.  Besides,  the  first  duty  of 
each  member  of  the  poor  household  was,  as  she  justly  con- 
ceived, to  get  a  living  ;  and  as  Andrew  was  a  delicate 
child,  and  could  not  lift  and  carry  much,  nor  brave  the 
chances  of  an  out-door  occupation,  it  was  better  that  he 
should  be  in  the  shelter  of  a  store.  He,  however,  a  youth 
of  sixteen  years,  fresh  from  the  studies,  and  dreams,  and 
hopes  of  the  Montgomery  Academy,  found  his  first  duty  to 
be  the  gentle  withstanding  of  his  mother's  wish  ;  and  quite 
willing  to  "settle,"  if  he  could  do  it  in  his  own  way, 
joined  his  brother  in  the  management  of  the  nursery. 
He  had  no  doubt  of  his  vocation.  Since  it  was  clear  that 
he  must  directly  do  something,  his  fine  taste  and  exquisite 
appreciation  of  natural  beauty,  his  love  of  natural  forms, 
and  the  processes  and  phenomena  of  natural  life,  im- 
mediately determined  his  choice.    Not  in  vain  had  his 


Xvi  MEMOIR. 

eyes  first  looked  upon  the  mountains  and  the  river.  Those 
silent  companions  of  his  childhood  claimed  their  own  in 
the  spirit  with  which  the  youth  entered  upon  his  profes- 
sion. To  the  poet's  eye  began  to  be  added  the  philoso- 
pher's mind  ;  and  the  great  spectacle  of  Nature  which  he 
had  loved  as  beauty,  began  to  enrich  his  life  as  knowledge. 
Yet  I  remember,  as  showing  that  with  all  his  accurate 
science  he  was  always  a  poet,  he  agreed  in  many  con- 
versations that  the  highest  enjoymeDt  of  beauty  was 
quite  independent  of  use  ;  and  that  while  the  pleasure  of 
a  botanist  who  could  at  once  determine  the  family  and 
species  of  a  plant,  and  detail  all  the  peculiarities  and  fit- 
ness of  its  structure,  was  very  great  and  inappreciable, 
yet  that  it  was  upon  a  lower  level  than  the  instinctive 
delight  in  the  beauty  of  the  same  flower.  The  botanist 
could  not  have  the  highest  pleasure  in  the  flower  if  he  were 
not  a  poet.  The  poet  would  increase  the  variety  of  his 
pleasure,  if  he  were  a  botanist.  It  was  this  constant  sub- 
jection of  science  to  the  sentiment  of  beauty  that  made 
him  an  artist,  and  did  not  leave  him  an  artisan  ;  and  his 
science  was  always  most  accurate  and  profound,  because 
the  very  depth  and  delicacy  of  his  feeling  for  beauty  gave 
him  the  utmost  patience  to  leam,  and  the  greatest  rapidity 
to  adapt,  the  means  of  organizing  to  the  eye  the  ideal 
image  in  his  mind. 

About  this  time  the  Baron  de  Liderer,  the  Austrian 
Consul  General,  who  had  a  summer  retreat  in  JSTewburgh, 
began  to  notice  the  youth,  whose  botanical  and  mineral- 
ogical  tastes  so  harmonized  with  his  own.  Nature  keeps 
fresh  the  feelings  of  her  votaries,  and  the  Baron,  although 
an  old  man,  made  hearty  friends  with  Downing  ;  and  they 
explored  together  the  hills  and  lowlands  of  the  neighbor- 
hood, till  it  had  no  more  vegetable  nor  mineral  secrets  from 


MEMOIR. 


XVli 


^ihujsiasts.  Downing  always  kept  in  the  hall  of  his 
houase.,  a  cabinet,  containing  mineralogical  specimens  col- 
lected in  these  excursions.  At  the  house  of  the  Baron, 
also,  and  in  that  of  his  wealthy  neighbor,  Edward  Arm- 
strong, Downing  discovered  how  subtly  cultivation  refines 
men  as  well  as  plants,  and  there  first  met  that  polished 
society  whose  elegance  and  grace  could  not  fail  to  charm 
him  as  essential  to  the  most  satisfactory  intercourse,  while 
it  presented  the  most  entire  contrast  to  the  associations  of 
his  childhood.  It  is  not  difficult  to  fancy  the  lonely  child, 
playing  unheeded  in  the  garden,  and  the  dark,  shy  boy,  of 
the  Montgomery  Academy,  meeting  with  a  thrill  of  satisfac- 
tion, as  if  he  had  been  waiting  for  them,  the  fine  gentle- 
men and  ladies  at  the  Consul  General's,  and  the  wealthy 
neighbor's,  Mr.  Armstrong,  at  whose  country-seat  he  was  in- 
troduced to  Mr.  Charles  Augustus  Murray,  when,  for  the  first 
time,  he  saw  one  of  the  class  that  he  never  ceased  to  honor 
for  their  virtues  and  graces — the  English  gentleman.  At 
this  time,  also,  the  figure  of  Eaphael  Hoyle,  an  English 
landscape  painter,  flits  across  his  history.  Congenial  in 
taste  and  feeling,  and  with  varying  knowledge,  the  two 
young  men  rambled  together  over  the  country  near  New- 
burgh,  and  while  Hoyle  caught  upon  canvas  the  colors 
and  forms  of  the  flowers,  and  the  outline  of  the  landscape, 
Downing  instructed  him  in  their  history  and  habits,  until 
they  wandered  from  the  actual  scene  into  discussions  dear 
to  both,  of  art,  and  life,  and  beauty  ;  or  the  artist  piqued 
the  imagination  of  his  friend  with  stories  of  English 
parks,  and  of  Italian  vineyards,  and  of  cloud-capped  Alps, 
embracing  every  zone  and  season,  as  they  rose, — while 
the  untravelled  youth  looked  across  the  river  to  the  Fish-| 
lrill> hills,  and  imagined  Switzerland.  This  soon  ended.; 
Eaphael  Hoyle  died.     The  living  book  of  travel  and 


xviii 


MEMO  IB. 


romantic  experience,  in  which  the  youth  who  had  wandered 
no  farther  than  to  Montgomery  Academy  and  to  the  top 
of  the  South  Beacon, — the  highest  hill  of  the  Fishkill 
range, — had  so  deeply  read  of  scenes  and  a  life  that  suited 
him,  was  closed  forever. 

Little  record  is  left  of  these  years  of  application,  of 
work,  and  study.  The  Fishkill  hills  and  the  broad  river, 
in  whose  presence  he  had  always  lived,  and  the  quiet 
country  around  Newburgh,  which  he  had  so  thoroughly  ex- 
plored, began  to  claim  some  visible  token  of  their  influence. 
It  is  pleasant  to  know  that  his  first  literary  works  were  re- 
cognitions of  their  charms.  It  shows  the  intellectual  integ- 
rity of  the  man  that,  despite  glowing  hopes  and  restless 
ambition  for  other  things,  his  first  essay  was  written  from 
his  experience  ;  it  was  a  description  of  the  "  Danskamer," 
or  Devil's  Dancing-Ground —  a  point  on  the  Hudson, 
seven  miles  above  Newburgh — published  in  the  New-  York 
Mirror.    A  description  of  Beacon  Hill  followed. 

He  wrote,  then,  a  discussion  of  novel-reading,  and  some 
botanical  papers,  which  were  published  in  a  Boston  journal. 
Whether  he  was  discouraged  by  the  ill  success  of  these 
attempts,  or  perceived  that  he  was  not  yet  sufficient  mas- 
ter of  his  resources  to  present  them  properly  to  the  public, 
does  not  appear,  but  he  published  nothing  more  for  several 
years.  Perhaps  he  knew  that  upon  the  subjects  to  which  his 
natural  tastes  directed  his  studies,  nothing  but  experience 
spoke  with  authority.  Whatever  the  reason  of  his  silence, 
however,  he  worked  on  unyieldingly,  studying,  proving, 
succeeding  ;  finding  time,  also,  to  read  the  poets  and  the 
philosophers,  and  to  gain  that  familiarity  with  elegant 
literature  which  always  graced  his  own  composition.  Of 
this  period  of  his  life,  little  record,  but  great  results, 
remain.  |  With  his  pen,  and  books,  and  microscope,  in  the 


MEMOIR. 


red  house,  and  his  pruning-knife  and  sharp  eye  in  the 
nursery  and  garden,  he  was  learning,  adapting,  and  tri- 
umphing,— and  also,  doubtless,  dreaming  and  resolving. 
If  any  stranger  wishing  to  purchase  trees  at  the  nursery 
of  the  Messrs.  Downing,  in  Newburgh,  had  visited  that 
pleasant  town,  and  transacted  business  with  the  younger 
partner,  he  would  have  been  perplexed  to  understand  why 
the  younger  partner  with  his  large  knowledge,  his  remark- 
able power  of!  combination,  his  fine  taste,  his  rich  cultiva- 
tion, his  singular  force  and  precision  of  expression,  his  evi- 
dent mastery  of  his  profession,  was  not  a  recognized 
authority  in  it,  and  why  he  had  never  been  heard  of.  For 
it  was  remarkable  in  Downing,  to  the  end,  that  he  always 
attracted  attention  and  excited  speculation.  The  boy  of 
the  Montgomery  Academy  carried  that  slightly  defiant 
head  into  the  arena  of  life,  and  seemed  always  too  much  a 
critical  observer  not  to  challenge  wonder,  sometimes,  even, 
to  excite  distrust.  That  was  the  eye  which  in  the  vege- 
table world  had  scanned  the  law  through  the  appearance, 
and  followed  through  the  landscape  the  elusive  line  of 
beauty.  It  was  a  full,  firm,  serious  eye.  He  did  not 
smile  with  his  eyes  as  many  do,  but  they  held  you  as  in  a 
grasp,  looking  from  under  their  cover  of  dark  brows. 

The  young  man,  now  twenty  years  old  or  more,  and 
hard  at  work,  began  to  visit  the  noble  estates  upon  the 
banks  of  the  Hudson,  to  extend  his  experience,  and  confirm 
his  nascent  theories  of  art  in  landscape-gardening.  Study- 
ing in  the  red  cottage,  and  working  in  the  nursery  upon 
the  Newburgh  highlands,  he  had  early  seen  that  in  a  new, 
and  unworked,  and  quite  boundless  country,  with  every 
variety  of  kindly  climate  and  available  soil,  where  fortunes 
arose  in  a  night,  an  opportunity  was  offered  to  Art,  of 
achieving  a  new  and  characteristic  triumph.    To  touch 


MEMOIR. 


the  continent  lying  chaotic,  in  mountain,  and  lake,  and 
forest,  with  a  finger  that  should  develop  all  its  resources 
of  beauty,  for  the  admiration  and  benefit  of  its  children, 
seemed  to  him  a  task  worthy  the  highest  genius.  This 
was  the  dream  that  dazzled  the  silent  years  of  his  life 
in  the  garden,  and  inspired  and  strengthened  him  in 
every  exertion.  As  he  saw  more  and  more  of  the  results 
of  this  spirit  in  the  beautiful  Hudson  country-seats,  he 
was,  naturally,  only  the  more  resolved.  To  lay  out  one 
garden  well,  in  conformity  with  the  character  of  the  sur- 
rounding landscape,  in  obedience  to  the  truest  taste,  and 
to  make  a  man's  home,  and  its  grounds,  and  its  accesso- 
ries, as  genuine  works  of  art  as  any  picture  or  statue  that 
the  owner  had  brought  over  the  sea,  was,  in  his  mind,  the 
first  step  toward  the  great  result. 

At  the  various  places  upon  the  river,  as  he  visited  them 
from  time  to  time,  he  was  received  as  a  gentleman,  a  scho- 
lar, and  the  most  practical  man  of  the  party,  would  neces- 
sarily be  welcomed.  He  sketched,  he  measured ;  "in  a 
walk  he  plucks  from  an  overhanging  bough  a  single  leaf, 
examines  its  color,  form  and  structure  ;  inspects  it  with 
his  microscope,  and,  having  recorded  his  observations,  pre- 
sents it  to  his  friend,  and  invites  him  to  study  it,  as  sug- 
gestive of  some  of  the  first  principles  of  rural  architecture 
and  economy."  No  man  enjoyed  society  more,  and  none 
ever  lost  less  time.  His  pleasure  trips  from  point  to  point 
upon  the  river  were  the  excursions  of  the  honey-bee  into 
the  flower.  He  returned  richly  laden ;  and  the  young 
partner,  feeling  from  childhood  the  necessity  of  entire  self- 
dependence,  continued  to  live  much  alone,  to  be  reserved, 
but  always  affable  and  gentle.  These  travels  were  usually 
brief,  and  strictly  essential  to  his  education.  He  was  wisely 
getting  ready ;  it  would  be  so  fatal  to  speak  without  autho- 


MEMOIR. 


XXI 


rity,  and  authority  came  only  with  much  observation  and 
many  years. 

But,  during  these  victorious  incursions  into  the  realms 
of  experience,  the  younger  partner  had  himself  been  con- 
quered. Directly  opposite  the  red  cottage,  upon  the 
other  side  of  the  river,  at  FishMU  Landing,  lay,  under 
blossoming  locust  trees,  the  estate  and  old  family  mansion 
of  John  P.  De  Wint,  Esq.  The  place  had  the  charms  of  a 
"  moated  grange,"  and  was  quite  the  contrast  of  the  ele- 
gant care  and  incessant  cultivation  that  marked  the  grounds 
of  the  young  man  in  Newburgh.  But  the  fine  old  place, 
indolently  lying  in  luxuriant  decay,  was  the  seat  of  bound- 
less hospitality  and  social  festivity.  The  spacious  piazzas, 
and  the  gently  sloping  lawn,  which  made  the  foreground  of 
one  of  the  most  exquisite  glimpses  of  the  Hudson,  rang  all 
summer  long  with  happy  laughter.  Under  those  blossom- 
ing locust  trees  were  walks  that  led  to  the  shore,  and  the 
moon  hanging  over  Cro'  Nest  recalled  to  all  loiterers  along 
the  bank  the  loveliest  legends  of  the  river.  In  winter  the 
revel  shifted  from  the  lawn  to  the  frozen  river.  One  such 
gay  household  is  sufficient  nucleus  for  endless  enjoyment. 
From  the  neighboring  West  Point,  only  ten  miles  distant, 
came  gallant  young  officers,  boating  in  summer,  and  skat- 
ing in  winter,  to  serenade  under  the  locusts,  or  join  the 
dance  upon  the  lawn.  Whatever  was  young  and  gay  was 
drawn  into  the  merry  maelstrom,  and  the  dark-haired  boy 
from  Newburgh,  now  grown,  somehow,  to  be  a  gentleman 
of  quiet  and  polished  manners,  found  himself,  even  when  in 
the  grasp  of  the  scientific  coils  of  Parmentier,  Bepton,  Price, 
Loudon,  Lindley,  and  the  rest, — or  busy  with  knife,  clay, 
and  grafts, — dreaming  of  the  grange  beyond  the  river,  and 
of  the  Marianna  he  had  found  there. 

Summer  lay  warm  upon  the  hills  and  river  ;  the  land- 


XXI] 


MEMOIR. 


scape  was  yet  untouched  by  the  scorching  July  heats  ; 
and  on  the  seventh  of  June,  1838, — he  being  then  in  his 
twenty-third  year, — Downing  was  married  to  Caroline, 
eldest  daughter  of  J.  P.  De  Wint,  Esq.  At  this  time, 
he  dissolved  the  business  connection  with  his  elder  brother, 
and  continued  the  nursery  by  himself.  There  were  other 
changes  also.  The  busy  mother  of  his  childhood  was  busy 
no  longer.  She  had  now  been  for  several  years  an  invalid, 
unable  even  to  walk  in  the  garden.  She  continued  to  live 
in  the  little  red  cottage  which  Downing  afterwards  re- 
moved to  make  way  for  a  green-house.  Her  sons  were 
men  now,  and  her  daughter  a  woman.  The  necessity  for 
her  own  exertion  was  passed,  and  her  hold  upon  life  was 
gradually  loosened,  until  she  died  in  1839. 

Downing  now  considered  himself  ready  to  begin  the 
career  for  which  he  had  so  long  been  preparing  ;  and  very 
properly  his  first  work  was  his  own  house,  built  in  the  gar- 
den of  his  father,  and  only  a  few  rods  from  the  cottage 
in  which  he  was  born.  It  was  a  simple  house,  in  an  Eliz- 
abethan style,  by  which  he  designed  to  prove  that  a  beau- 
tiful, and  durable,  and  convenient  mansion,  could  be  built 
as  cheaply  as  a  poor  and  tasteless  temple,  which  seemed  to 
be,  at  that  time,  the  highest  American  conception  of  a 
fine  residence.  In  this  design  he  entirely  succeeded.  His 
house,  which  did  not,  however,  satisfy  his  maturer  eye, 
was  externally  very  simple,  but  extremely  elegant ;  indeed, 
its  chief  impression  was  that  of  elegance.  Internally  it 
was  spacious  and  convenient,  very  gracefully  proportioned 
and  finished,  and  marked  every  where  by  the  same  spirit. 
Wherever  the  eye  fell,  it  detected  that  a  wiser  eye  had 
been  before  it.  All  the  forms  and  colors,  the  style  of  the 
furniture,  the  frames  of  the  mirrors  and  pictures,  the  pat- 
terns of  the  carpets,  were  harmonious,  and  it  was  a  har- 


MEMOIR. 


xxiii 


mmy  as  easily  achieved  by  taste  as  discord  by  vulgarity. 
There  was  no  painful  conformity,  no  rigid  monotony , 
there  waa  nothing  finical  nor  foppish  in  this  elegance — it 
was  the  necessary  result  of  knowledge  and  skill.  While 
the  house  was  building,  he  lived  with  his  wife  at  her 
father's.  He  personally  superintended  the  work,  which 
went  briskly  forward.  From  the  foot  of  the  Fishkill  hills 
beyond  the  river,  other  eyes  superintended  it,  also,  scan- 
ning, with  a  telescope,  the  Newburgh  garden  and  growing 
house  ;  and,  possibly,  from  some  rude  telegraph,  as  a  white 
cloth  upon  a  tree,  or  a  blot  of  black  paint  upon  a  smooth 
board,  Hero  knew  whether  at  evening  to  expect  her  Le- 
ander. 

The  house  was  at  length  finished.  A  graceful  and 
beautiful  building  stood  in  the  garden,  higher  and  hand- 
somer than  the  little  red  cottage — a  very  pregnant  symbol 
to  any  poet  who  should  chance  that  way  and  hear  the 
history  of  the  architect. 

Once  fairly  established  in  his  house,  it  became  the  seat 
of  the  most  gracious  hospitality,  and  was  a  beautiful  illus- 
tration of  that  "  rural  home  "  upon  whose  influence  Down- 
ing counted  so  largely  for  the  education  and  intelligent 
patriotism  of  his  countrymen.  His  personal  exertions 
were  unremitting.  He  had  been  for  some  time  projecting 
a  work  upon  his  favorite  art  of  Landscape  Gardening,  and 
presently  began  to  throw  it  into  form.  His  time  for  liter- 
ary labor  was  necessarily  limited  by  his  superintendence  of 
the  nursery.  But  the  book  was  at  length  completed,  and 
in  the  year  1841,  the  Author  being  then  twenty-six  years 
old,  Messrs.  Wiley  &  Putnam  published  in  New- York  and 
London,  "A  Treatise  on  the  Theory  and  Practice  of 
Landscape  Gardening,  adapted  to  North  America,  with  a 
view  to  the  Improvement  of  Country  Eesidences.  With 


xxiv 


MEMOIR. 


Remarks  ou  Rural  Architecture.     By  A.  J.  Downing." 

The  most  concise  and  comprehensive  definition  of  Land- 
scape G-ardening  that  occurs  in  his  works,  is  to  be  found 
in  the  essay,  "  Hints  on  Landscape  Gardening."  "  It  is 
an  art,"  he  says,  "  which  selects  from  natural  materials 
that  abound  in  any  country  its  best  sylvan  features,  and 
by  giving  them  a  better  opportunity  than  they  could 
otherwise  obtain,  brings  about  a  higher  beauty  of  de- 
velopment and  a  more  perfect  expression  than  nature 
herself  offers. "  The  preface  of  the  book  is  quite  with- 
out pretence.  "  The  love  of  country,"  says  our  author, 
with  a  gravity  that  overtops  his  years,  "is  inseparably 
connected  with  the  love  of  home.  Whatever,  therefore, 
leads  man  to  assemble  the  comforts  and  elegancies  of 
life  around  his  habitation,  tends  to  increase  local  attach- 
ments, and  render  domestic  life  more  delightful ;  thus,  not 
only  augmenting  his  own  enjoyment,  but  strengthening 
his  patriotism,  and  making  him  a  better  citizen.  And 
there  is  no  employment  or  recreation  which  affords  the 
mind  greater  or  more  permanent  satisfaction  than  that  of 
cultivating  the  earth  and  adorning  our  own  property. 
'  G-od  Almighty  first  planted  a  garden  ;  and,  indeed,  it  is 
the  parent  of  human  pleasures/  says  Lord  Bacon.  And 
as  the  first  man  was  shut  out  from  the  garden,  in  the  cul- 
tivation of  which  no  alloy  was  mixed  with  his  happiness, 
the  desire  to  return  to  it  seems  to  be  implanted  by  nature, 
more  or  less  strongly,  in  every  heart." 

This  book  passed  to  instant  popularity,  and  became  a 
classic,  invaluable  to  the  thousands  in  every  part  of  the 
country  who  were  waiting  for  the  master-word  which 
should  tell  them  what  to  do  to  make  their  hemes  as  beau- 
tiful as  they  wished.  Its  fine  scholarship  in  the  literature 
and  history  of  rural  art  ;  its  singular  dexterity  in  stating 


MEMOIR. 


XXV 


the  great  principles  of  taste,  and  their  application  to  actual 
circumstances,  with  a  clearness  that  satisfied  the  dullest 
mind  ;  its  genial  grace  of  style,  illuminated  by  the  sense 
of  that  beauty  which  it  was  its  aim  to  indicate,  and  with  a 
cheerfulness  which  is  one  of  the  marked  characteristics  of 
Downing  as  an  author  ;  the  easy  mastery  of  the  subject, 
and  its  intrinsic  interest  ;— all  these  combined  to  secure 
to  the  book  the  position  it  has  always  occupied.  The  tes- 
timony of  the  men  most  competent  to  speak  with  author- 
ity in  the  matter  was  grateful,  because  deserved,  praise. 
Loudon,  the  editor  of  "Eepton's  Landscape  Gardening," 
and  perhaps  at  the  time  the  greatest  living  critic  in  the 
department  of  rural  art,  at  once  declared  it  "  a  masterly 
work  ;"  and  after  quoting  freely  from  its  pages,  remarked  : 
"  We  have  quoted  largely  from  this  work,  because  in  so 
doing  we  think  we  shall  give  a  just  idea  of  the  great  merit 
of  the  author."  Dr.  Lindley,  also,  in  his  "  Gardener's 
Chronicle,"  dissented  from  "  some  minor  points,"  but 
said  :  "  On  the  whole,  we  know  of  no  work  in  which  the 
fundamental  principles  of  this  profession  are  so  well  or  so 
concisely  expressed  : "  adding,  "  No  English  landscape 
gardener  has  written  so  clearly,  or  with  so  much  real  in- 
tensity." 

The  "quiet,  thoughtful,  and  reserved  boy"  of  the 
Montgomery  Academy  had  thus  suddenly  displayed  the 
talent  which  was  not  suspected  by  his  school-fellows. 
The  younger  partner  had  now  justified  the  expectation  he 
aroused  ;  and  the  long,  silent,  careful  years  of  study  and 
experience  insured  the  permanent  value  of  the  results  he 
announced.  The  following  year  saw  the  publication  of  the 
"  Cottage  Kesidences,"  in  which  the  principles  of  the  first 
volume  were  applied  in  detail.  For  the  same  reason  it 
achieved  a  success  similar  to  the  "  Landscape  Gardening." 


MEMOIR. 


Rural  England  recognized  its  great  value.  Loudon  said  : 
"  It  cannot  fail  to  be  of  great  service.*"  Another  said  : 
"We  stretch  our  arm  across  the  'big  water'  to  tender 
our  Yankee  coadjutor  an  English  shake  and  a  cordial  re- 
cognition." These  -welcomes  from  those  who  knew  what 
and  why  they  welcomed,  founded  Downing's  authority  in 
the  minds  of  the  less  learned,  while  the  simplicity  of  his 
own  statements  confirmed  it.  From  the  publication  of 
the  "Landscape  Gardening"  until  his  death,  he  continued 
to  be  the  chief  American  authority  in  rural  art. 

European  honors  soon  began  to  seek  the  young  gardenei 
upon  the  Hudson.  He  had  been  for  some  time  in  corres- 
pondence with  Loudon,  and  the  other  eminent  men  of  the 
profession.  He  was  now  elected  corresponding  member  of 
the  Royal  Botanic  Society  of  London,  of  the  Horticultural 
Societies  of  Berlin,  the  Low  Countries,  &c.  Queen  Anne 
of  Denmark  sent  him  "  a  magnificent  ring,"  in  acknow- 
ledgment of  her  pleasure  in  his  works.  But,  as  the 
years  slowly  passed,  a  sweeter  praise  saluted  him  than  the 
Queen's  ring,  namely,  the  gradual  improvement  of  the  na- 
tional rural  taste,  and  the  universal  testimony  that  it  was 
due  to  Downing.  It  was  found  as  easy  to  live  in  a  hand- 
some house  as  in  one  that  shocked  all  sense  of  propriety 
and  beauty.  The  capabilities  of  the  landscape  began  to 
develop  themselves  to  the  man  who  looked  at  it  from  his 
windows,  with  Downing' s  books  in  his  hand.  Mr.  Wilder 
says  that  a  gentleman  "  who  is  eminently  qualified  to  form 
an  enlightened  judgment,"  declared  that  much  of  the  im- 
provement that  has  taken  place  in  this  country  during  the 
last  twelve  years,  in  rural  architecture  and  in  ornamental 
gardening  and  planting,  may  be  ascribed  to  him.  Another 
gentleman,  "  speaking  of  suburban  cottages  in  the  West," 
says  :  "  I  asked  the  origin  of  so  much  taste,  and  was  told 


MEMOIR. 


it  might  principally  be  traced  to  'Downing's  Cottage  Kesi- 
dences '  and  the  ■  Horticulturist/  "  He  was  naturally  elect- 
ed an  honorary  member  of  most  of  the  Horticultural  Soci- 
eties in  the  country  ;  and  as  his  interest  in  rural  life  was 
universal,  embracing  no  less  the  soil  and  cultivation,  than 
the  plant,  and  flower,  and  fruit,  with  the  residence  of  the 
cultivator,  he  received  the  same  honor  from  the  Agricultu- 
ral Associations. 

Meanwhile  his  studies  were  unremitting  ;  and  in  1845 
Wiley  &  Putnam  published  in  New- York  and  London 
"  The  Fruits  and  Fruit  Trees  of  America,"  a  vohfme  of 
six  hundred  pages.  The  duodecimo  edition  had  only  lineal 
drawings.  The  large  octavo  was  illustrated  with  finely 
colored  plates,  executed  in  Paris,  from  drawings  made  in 
this  country  from  the  original  fruits.  It  is  a  masterly 
resume  of  the  results  of  American  experience  in  the  his- 
tory, character,  and  growth  of  fruit,  to  the  date  of  its  pub- 
lication. The  fourteenth  edition  was  published  in  the  year 
1852. 

It  was  in  May  of  the  year  1846  that  I  first  saw  Down- 
ing. A  party  was  made  up  under  the  locusts  to  cross  the 
river  and  pass  the  day  at  "Highland  Gardens,"  as  his  place 
was  named.  The  river  at  Newburgh  is  about  a  mile  wide, 
and  is  crossed  by  a  quiet  country  ferry,  whence  the  view 
downward  toward  the  West  Point  Highlands,  Butter  Hill, 
Sugar-Loaf,  Cro'  Nest,  and  Skunnymunk,  is  as  beautiful 
a  river  view  as  can  be  seen  upon  a  summer  day.  It  was  a 
merry  party  which  crossed,  that  bright  May  morning,  and 
broke,  with  ringing  laughter,  the  silence  of  the  river. 
Most  of  us  were  newly  escaped  from  the  city,  where  we 
had  been  blockaded  by  the  winter  for  many  months,  and 
although  often  tempted  by  the  warm  days  that  came  in 
March,  opening  the  windows  on  Broadway  and  ranging 


xxviii 


MEMOIR. 


the  blossoming  plants  in  them,  to  believe  that  summer 
had  fairly  arrived,  we  had  uniformly  found  the  spring  to 
be  that  laughing  lie  which  the  poets  insist  it  is  not. 
There  was  no  doubt  longer,  however.  The  country  was 
so  brilliant  with  the  tender  green  that  it  seemed  festally 
adorned,  and  it  was  easy  enough  to  believe  that  human 
genius  could  have  no  lovelier  nor  loftier  task  than  the 
development  of  these  colors,  and  forms,  and  opportunities, 
into  their  greatest  use  and  adaptation  to  human  life. 
"  G-od  Almighty  first  planted  a  garden,  and,  indeed,  it  is 
the  first  of  human  pleasures."  Lord  Bacon  said  it  long 
ago,  and  the  bright  May  morning  echoed  it,  as  we  crossed 
the  river. 

I  had  read  Downing's  books  ;  and  they  had  given  me 
the  impression,  naturally  formed  of  one  who  truly  said  of 
himself,  "Angry  volumes  of  politics  have  we  written  none  : 
but  peaceful  books,  humbly  aiming  to  weave  something 
more  into  the  fair  garland  of  the  beautiful  and  useful  that 
mcircles  this  excellent  old  earth/' 

His  image  in  my  mind  was  idyllic.  I  looked  upon  him 
as  a  kind  of  pastoral  poet.  I  had  fancied  a  simple,  abstracted 
cultivator,  gentle  and  silent.  We  left  the  boat  and  drove 
to  his  house.  The  open  gate  admitted  us  to  a  smooth  ave- 
nue. We  had  glimpses  of  an  Arbor- Vita?  hedge, — a  small 
and  exquisite  lawn — rare  and  flowering  trees,  and  bushes 
beyond — a  lustrous  and  odorous  thicket — a  gleam  of  the 
river  below — "a  feeling"  of  the  mountains  across  the 
river — and  were  at  the  same  moment  alighting  at  the 
door  of  the  elegant  mansion,  in  which  stood,  what  ap- 
peared to  me  a  tall,  slight  Spanish  gentleman,  with  thick 
black  hair  worn  very  long,  and  dark  eyes  fixed  upon  me 
with  a  searching  glance.  He  was  dressed  simply  in  a  cos- 
tume fitted  for  the  morning  hospitalities  of  his  house,  or 


MEMOIR. 


XXIX 


for  the  study,  or  the  garden.  His  welcoming  smile  was 
reserved,  but  genuine, — his  manner  singularly  hearty  and 
quiet,  marked  by  the  easy  elegance  and  perfect  savoir 
/aire  which  would  have  adorned  the  Escurial.  We  passed 
into  the  library.  The  book-shelves  were  let  into  the  wall,  and 
the  doors  covered  with  glass.  They  occupied  only  part  of 
the  walls,  and  upon  the  space  above  each  was  a  bracket 
with  busts  of  Dante,  Milton,  Petrarch,  Franklin,  Linnasus, 
and  Scott.  There  was  a  large  bay  window  opposite  the 
fireplace.  The  forms  and  colors  of  this  room  were  delight- 
ful. It  was  the  retreat  of  an  elegantly  cultivated  gentle- 
man. There  were  no  signs  of  work  except  a  writing-table, 
with  pens,  and  portfolios,  and  piles  of  letters. 

Here  we  sat  and  conversed.  Our  host  entered  into 
every  subject  gayly  and  familiarly,  with  an  appreciating 
deference  to  differences  of  opinion,  and  an  evident  tenacity 
of  his  own,  all  the  while,  which  surprised  me,  as  the  pecu- 
liarity of  the  most  accomplished  man  of  the  world.  There 
was  a  certain  aristocratic  hauteur  in  his  manner,  a  constant 
sense  of  personal  dignity,  which  comported  with  the  reserve 
of  his  smile  and  the  quiet  welcome.  His  intellectual  atti- 
tude seemed  to  be  one  of  curious  criticism,  as  if  he  were 
sharply  scrutinizing  all  that  his  affability  of  manner  drew 
forth.  No  one  had  a  readier  generosity  of  acknowledgment, 
and  there  was  a  negative  flattery  in  his  address  and  atten- 
tion, which  was  very  subtle  and  attractive.  In  all  allu- 
sions to  rural  affairs,  and  matters  with  which  he  was  entirely 
familiar,  his  conversation  was  not  in  the  slightest  degree 
pedantic,  nor  positive.  He  spoke  of  such  things  with  the 
simplicity  of  a  child  talking  of  his  toys.  The  workman, 
the  author,  the  artist,  were  entirely  subjugated  in  him  to 
the  gentleman.  That  was  his  favorite  idea.  The  gentle- 
man was  the  full  flower,  of  which  all  the  others  were  sug- 


XXX 


MEMOIR. 


gestions  and  parts.  The  gentleman  is,  to  the  various  pow- 
ers and  cultivations  of  the  man,  what  the  tone  is  to  the 
picture,  which  lies  in  no  single  color,  hut  in  the  harmony 
of  the  whole.  The  gentleman  is  the  final  bloom  of  the 
man.  But  no  man  could  he  a  gentleman  without  original 
nobleness  of  feeling  and  genuineness  of  character.  Gentle- 
ness was  developed  from  that  by  experience  and  study,  as 
the  delicate  tinge  upon  precious  fruits,  by  propitious  circum- 
stances and  healthy  growth. 

In  this  feeling,  which  was  a  constituent  of  his  charac- 
ter, lay  the  secret  of  the  appearance  of  hauteur  that  was 
so  often  remarked  in  him,  to  which  Miss  Bremer  al- 
ludes, and  which  all  his  friends  perceived,  more  or  less  dis- 
tinctly. Its  origin  was,  doubtless,  twofold.  It  sprang 
first  from  his  exquisite  mental  organization,  which  instinct- 
ively shrunk  from  whatever  was  coarse  or  crude,  and  which 
made  his  artistic  taste  so  true  and  fine.  That  easily  ex- 
tended itself  to  demand  the  finest  results  of  men,  as  of 
trees,  and  fruits,  and  flowers  ;  and  then  committed  the 
natural  error  of  often  accepting  the  appearance  of  this  re- 
sult, where  the  fact  was  wanting.  Hence  he  had  a  natural 
fondness  for  the  highest  circles  of  society — a  fondness  as 
deeply  founded  as  his  love  of  the  best  possible  fruits.  His 
social  tendency  was  constantly  toward  those  to  whom  great 
wealth  had  given  opportunity  of  that  ameliorating  culture, 
— of  surrounding  beautiful  homes  with  beautiful  grounds, 
and  filling  them  with  refined  and  beautiful  persons,  which 
is  the  happy  fortune  of  few.  Hence,  also,  the  fact  that  his 
introduction  to  Mr.  Murray  was  a  remembered  event,  be- 
cause the  mind  of  the  boy  instantly  recognized  that  society 
to  which,  by  affinity,  he  belonged  ;  and  hence,  also,  that 
admiration  of  the  character  and  life  of  the  English  gentle- 
man, which  was  life-long  with  him,  and  which  made  him, 


MEMOIR. 


xxxi 


when  he  went  to  England,  naturally  and  directly  at  home 
among  them.  From  this,  also,  came  his  extreme  fondness 
for  music,  although  he  had  very  little  ear  ;  and  often  when 
his  wife  read  to  him  any  peculiarly  beautiful  or  touching 
passage  from  a  book,  he  was  quite  unable  to  speak,  so 
much  was  he  mastered  by  his  emotion.  Besides  this  deli- 
cacy of  organization,  which  makes  aristocrats  of  all  who 
have  it,  the  sharp  contrast  between  his  childhood  and  his 
mature  life  doubtlessly  nourished  a  kind  of  mental  protest 
against  the  hard  discomforts,  want  of  sympathy,  and  mis- 
understandings of  poverty. 

I  recall  but  one  place  in  which  he  deliberately  states 
this  instinct  of  his,  as  an  opinion.  In  the  paper  upon 
"  Improvement  of  Vegetable  Kaces,"  April,  1852,  he  says  : 
"  We  are  not  going  to  be  led  into  a  physiological  digres- 
sion on  the  subject  of  the  inextinguishable  rights  of  a  su- 
perior organization  in  certain  men,  and  races  of  men,  which 
Nature  every  day  reaffirms,  notwithstanding  the  social- 
istic and  democratic  theories  of  our  politicians/'  But 
this  statement  only  asserts  the  difference  of  organization. 
No  man  was  a  truer  American  than  Downing  ;  no  man 
more  opposed  to  all  kinds  of  recognition  of  that  difference 
in  intellectual  organization  by  a  difference  of  social  rank. 
That  he  considered  to  be  the  true  democracy  which  as- 
serted the  absolute  equality  of  opportunity ;— and,  there- 
fore, he  writes  from  Warwick  Castle,  a  place  which  in 
every  way  could  charm  no  man  more  than  him  :  "  but  I 
turned  my  face  at  last  westward  toward  my  native  land, 
and  with  uplifted  eyes  thanked  the  good  G-od  that,  though 
to  England,  the  country  of  my  ancestors,  it  had  been  given 
to  show  the  growth  of  man  in  his  highest  development  of 
class  or  noble,  to  America  has  been  reserved  the  greater 
blessing  of  solving  for  the  world  the  true  problem  of  all 


xxxn 


MEMOIR. 


humanity, — that  of  the  abolition  of  all  castes,  and  the  re- 
cognition of  the  divine  rights  of  every  human  soul."  On 
that  May  morning,  in  the  library,  I  remember  the  conver- 
sation, drifting  from  subject  to  subject,  touched  an  essay 
upon  "Manners,"  by  Mr.  Emerson,  then  recently  pub- 
lished ;  and  in  the  few  words  that  Mr.  Downing  said,  lay 
the  germ  of  what  I  gradually  discovered  to  be  his  feeling 
upon  the  subject.  This  hauteur  was  always  evident  in  his 
personal  intercourse.  In  his  dealings  with  workmen,  with 
publishers,  with  men  of  affairs  of  all  kinds,  the  same  feel- 
ing, which  they  called  "stiffness,"  coldness,"  "pride," 
"  haughtiness,"  or  "  reserve,"  revealed  itself.  That  first 
morning  it  only  heightened  in  my  mind  the  Spanish  im- 
pression of  the  dark,  slim  man,  who  so  courteously  wel- 
comed us  at  his  door. 

It  was  May,  and  the  magnolias  were  in  blossom.  Un- 
der our  host's  guidance,  we  strolled  about  his  grounds, 
which,  although  they  comprised  but  some  five  acres,  were 
laid  out  in  a  large  style,  that  greatly  enhanced  their  appar- 
ent extent.  The  town  lay  at  the  bottom  of  the  hill,  be- 
tween the  garden  and  the  water,  and  there  was  a  road  just 
at  the  foot  of  the  garden.  But  so  skilfully  were  the  trees 
arranged,  that  all  suspicion  of  town  or  road  was  removed. 
Lying  upon  the  lawn,  standing  in  the  door,  or  sitting  under 
the  light  piazza  before  the  parlor  windows,  the  enchanted 
visitor  saw  only  the  garden  ending  in  the  thicket,  which  was 
so  dexterously  trimmed  as  to  reveal  the  loveliest  glimpses  of 
the  river,  each  a  picture  in  its  frame  of  foliage,  but  which 
was  not  cut  low  enough  to  betray  the  presence  of  road  or 
town.  You  fancied  the  estate  extended  to  the  river  ;  yes, 
and  probably  owned  the  river  as  an  ornament,  and  in- 
cluded the  mountains  beyond.  At  least,  you  felt  that 
here  was  a  man  who  knew  that  the  best  part  of  the  land- 


MEMOIR. 


xxxiii 


scape  could  not  be  owned,  but  belonged  to  every  one  who 
could  appropriate  it.  The  thicket  seemed  not  only  to  con- 
ceal, but  to  annihilate,  the  town.  So  sequestered  and  sat- 
isfied was  the  guest  of  that  garden,  that  he  was  quite  care- 
less and  incurious  of  the  world  beyond.  I  have  often 
passed  a  week  there  without  wishing  to  go  outside  the 
gate,  and  entirely  forgot  that  there  was  any  town  near  by. 
Sometimes,  at  sunset  or  twilight,  we  stepped  into  a  light 
wagon,  and  turning  up  the  hill,  as  we  came  out  of  the 
grounds,  left  Newburgh  below,  and  drove  along  roads  hang- 
ing over  the  river,  or,  passing  Washington's  Head  Quar- 
ters, trotted  leisurely  along  the  shore. 

Within  his  house  it  was  easy  to  understand  that  the 
home  was  so  much  the  subject  of  his  thought.  Why  did 
he  wish  that  the  landscape  should  be  lovely,  and  the  houses 
graceful  and  beautiful,  and  the  fruit  fine,  and  the  flowers 
perfect,  but  because  these  were  all  dependencies  and  orna- 
ments of  home,  and  home  was  the  sanctuary  of  the  high- 
est human  affection.  This  was  the  point  of  departure  of 
his  philosophy.  Nature  must  serve  man.  The  landscape 
must  be  made  a  picture  in  the  gallery  of  love.  Home  was 
the  pivot  upon  which  turned  all  his  theories  of  rural  art. 
All  his  efforts,  all  the  grasp  of  genius,  and  the  cunning  of 
talent,  were  to  complete,  in  a  perfect  home,  the  apotheosis 
of  love.  It  is  in  this  fact  that  the  permanence  of  his  in- 
fluence is  rooted.  His  works  are  not  the  result  of  elegant 
taste,  and  generous  cultivation,  and  a  clear  intellect,  only  ; 
but  of  a  noble  hope  that  inspired  taste,  cultivation,  and 
intellect.  This  saved  him  as  an  author  from  being  wrecked 
upon  formulas.  He  was  strictly  scientific,  few  men  in  his 
department  more  so  ;  but  he  was  never  rigidly  academical 
He  always  discerned  the  thing  signified  through  the  ex- 
pression ;  and,  in  his  own  art,  insisted  that  if  there  was 
3 


MEMOIR. 


nothing  to  say,  nothing  should  be  said.  He  knew  per- 
fectly well  that  there  is  a  time  for  discords,  and  a  place 
for  departures  from  rule,  and  he  understood  them  when 
they  came, — which  was  peculiar  and  very  lovely  in  a  man 
of  so  delicate  a  nervous  organization.  This  led  him  to  be 
tolerant  of  all  differences  of  opinion  and  action,  and  to  be 
sensitively  wary  of  injuring  the  feelings  of  those  from  whom 
he  differed.  He  was  thus  scientific  in  the  true  sense.  In 
his  department  he  was  wise,  and  we  find  him  writing  from 
Warwick  Castle  again,  thus  :  "  Whoever  designed  this 
front,  made  up  as  it  is  of  lofty  towers  and  irregular  walls, 
must  have  been  a  poet  as  well  as  architect,  for  its  com- 
position and  details  struck  me  as  having  the  proportions 
and  congruity  of  a  fine  scene  in  nature,  which  we  feel  is 
not  to  be  measured  and  defined  by  the  ordinary  rules  of 
art." 

His  own  home  was  his  finest  work.  It  was  materially 
beautiful,  and  spiritually  bright  with  the  purest  lights  of 
affection.  Its  hospitality  was  gracious  and  graceful.  It 
consulted  the  taste,  wishes,  and  habits  of  the  guest,  but 
with  such  unobtrusiveness,  that  the  favorite  flower  every 
morning  by  the  plate  upon  the  breakfast-table,  seemed  to 
have  come  there  as  naturally,  in  the  family  arrangements, 
as  the  plate  itself.  He  held  his  house  as  the  steward  of 
his  friends.  His  social  genius  never  suffered  a  moment  to 
drag  wearily  by.  No  man  was  so  necessarily  devoted  to 
his  own  affairs, — no  host  ever  seemed  so  devoted  to  his 
guests.  Those  guests  were  of  the  most  agreeable  kind,  or., 
at  least,  they  seemed  so  in  that  house.  Perhaps  the  inter- 
preter of  the  House  Beautiful,  she  who — in  the  poet's 
natural  order — was  as  "  moonlight  unto  sunlight,"  was 
the  universal  solvent.  By  day,  there  were  always  books, 
conversation,  driving,  working,  lying  on  the  lawn,  excur- 


MEMOIR. 


XXXV 


sions  into  the  mountains  across  the  river,  visits  to  beau- 
tiful neighboring  places,  boating,  botanizing,  painting, — or 
whatever  else  could  be  done  in  the  country,  and  done  in 
the  pleasantest  way.  At  evening,  there  was  music, — fine 
playing  and  singing,  for  the  guest  was  thrice  welcome  who 
was  musical,  and  the  musical  were  triply  musical  there, — 
dancing,  charades,  games  of  every  kind, — never  suffered  to 
flag,  always  delicately  directed, — and  in  due  season  some 
slight  violation  of  the  Maine  Law.  Mr.  Downing  liked  the 
Ohio  wines,  with  which  his  friend,  Mr.  Longworth,  kept 
him  supplied,  and  of  which  he  said,  with  his  calm  good 
sense,  in  the  "Horticulturist,"  August,  1850, — "We  do 
not  mean  to  say  that  men  could  not  live  and  breathe  just 
as  well  if  there  were  no  such  thing  as  wine  known  ;  but 
that  since  the  time  of  Noah  men  will  not  be  contented 
with  merely  living  and  breathing ;  and  it  is  therefore 
better  to  provide  them  with  proper  and  wholesome  food 
and  drink,  than  to  put  improper  aliments  within  their 
reach."  Charades  were  a  favorite  diversion,  in  which  sev- 
eral of  his  most  frequent  guests  excelled.  He  was  always 
ready  to  take  part,  but  his  reserve  and  self-consciousness 
interfered  with  his  success.  His  social  enjoyment  was 
always  quiet.  He  rarely  laughed  loud.  He  preferred 
rather  to  sit  with  a  friend  and  watch  the  dance  or  the  game 
from  a  corner,  than  to  mingle  in  them.  He  wrote  verses, 
but  never  showed  them.  They  were  chiefly  rhyming  let- 
ters, clever  and  graceful,  to  his  wife,  and  her  sisters,  and 
some  intimate  friends,  and  to  a  little  niece,  of  whom  he 
was  especially  fond.  One  evening,  after  vainly  endeavoring 
to  persuade  a  friend  that  he  was  mistaken  in  the  kind  of 
a  fruit,  he  sent  him  the  following  characteristic  lines  : 


xxx  vi 


MEMOIR. 


"TO  THE  DOCTOR,  ON  HIS  PASSION  FOR  THE  ' DUCHESS  OF 
OLDENBUEGH.' " 

"  Dear  Doctor,  I  write  you  this  little  effusion, 
On  learning  you're  still  in  that  fatal  delusion 
Of  thinking  the  object  you  love  is  a  Duchess, 
When  'tis  only  a  milkmaid  you  hold  in  your  clutches ; 
"Why,  'tis  certainly  plain  as  the  spots  in  the  sun, 
That  the  creature  is  only  a  fine  Dutch  Mignonne. 
She  is  Dutch — there  is  surely  no  question  of  that, — 
She's  so  large  and  so  ruddy — so  plump  and  so  fat ; 
And  that  she's  a  Mignonne — a  beauty — most  moving, 
Is  equally  proved  by  your  desperate  loving ; 
But  that  she's  a  Duchess  I  flatly  deny, 
There's  such  a  broad  twinkle  about  her  deep  eye ; 
And  glance  at  the  russety  hue  of  her  skin — 
A  lady — a  noble — would  think  it  a  sin ! 
Ah  no,  my  dear  Doctor,  upon  my  own  honor, 
I  must  send  you  a  dose  of  the  true  Bella  donna  I " 

I  had  expressed  great  delight  with  the  magnolia,  aiiJ 
carried  one  of  the  flowers  in  my  hand  during  our  morning 
stroll.  At  evening  he  handed  me  a  fresh  one,  and  every- 
day while  I  remained,  the  breakfast-room  was  perfumed  by 
the  magnolia  that  was  placed  beside  my  plate.  This  deli- 
cate thoughtfulness  was  universal  with  him.  He  knew  all 
the  flowers  that  his  friends  especially  loved  ;  and  in  his 
notes  to  me  he  often  wrote,  "  the  magnolias  are  waiting 
for  you,"  as  an  irresistible  allurement — which  it  was  very- 
apt  to  prove.  Downing  was  in  the  library  when  I  came 
down  the  morning  after  our  arrival.  He  had  the  air  of  a 
man  who  has  been  broad  awake  and  at  work  for  several 
hours.  There  was  the  same  quiet  greeting  as  before — a 
gay  conversation,  glancing  at  a  thousand  things — and 
breakfast.  After  breakfast  he  disappeared  ;  but  if,  at 
any  time,  an  excursion  was  proposed, — to  climb  some  hill, 
to  explore  some  meadows  rich  in  rhododendron,  to  visit 


MEMOIR. 


XXXV 11 


some  lovely  lake, — he  was  quite  ready,  and  went  with  the 
same  unhurried  air  that  marked  all  his  actions.  Like 
Sir  Walter  Scott,  he  was  producing  results  implying  close 
application  and  labor,  but  without  any  apparent  expense 
of  time  or  means.  His  step  was  so  leisurely,  his  manner 
so  composed,  there  was  always  such  total  absence  of  wea- 
riness in  all  he  said  and  did,  that  it  was  impossible  to  be- 
lieve he  was  so  diligent  a  worker. 

But  this  composure,  this  reticence,  this  leisurely  air, 
were  all  imposed  upon  his  manner  by  his  regal  will.  He 
was  under  the  most  supreme  self-control.  It  was  so  abso- 
lute as  to  deprive  him  of  spontaneity  and  enthusiasm.  In 
social  intercourse  he  was  like  two  persons  :  the  one  con- 
versed with  you  pleasantly  upon  every  topic,  the  other 
watched  you  from  behind  that  pleasant  talk,  like  a  senti- 
nel. The  delicate  child,  left  much  to  himself  by  his 
parents,  naturally  grew  wayward  and  imperious.  But  the 
man  of  shrewd  common  sense,  with  his  way  to  make  in  the 
world,  saw  clearly  that  that  waywardness  must  be  sternly 
subjugated.  It  was  so,  and  at  the  usual  expense.  What 
the  friend  of  Downing  most  desired  in  him  was  a  frank  and 
unreserved  flow  of  feeling,  which  should  drown  out  that 
curious,  critical  self-consciousness.  He  felt  this  want  as 
much  as  any  one,  and  often  playfully  endeavored  to  supply 
it.  It  doubtless  arose,  in  great  part,  from  too  fine  a  ner- 
vous organization.  Under  the  mask  of  the  finished  man 
of  the  world  he  concealed  the  most  feminine  feelings,  which 
often  expressed  themselves  with  pathetic  intensity  to  the 
only  one  in  whom  he  unreservedly  confided. 

This  critical  reserve  behind  the  cordial  manner  invested 
his  whole  character  with  mystery.  The  long  dark  hair, 
the  firm  dark  eyes,  the  slightly  defiant  brow,  the  Spanish 
mien,  that  welcomed  us  that  May  morning,  seemed  to 


xxxviii 


MEMOIR. 


me  always  afterward,  the  symbols  of  his  character.  A 
cloud  wrapped  his  inner  life.  Motives,  and  the  deeper  feel- 
ings, were  lost  to  view  in  that  obscurity.  It  seemed  that 
within  this  cloud  there  might  be  desperate  struggles,  like 
the  battle  of  the  Huns  and  Romans,  invisible  in  the  air,  but 
of  which  no  token  escaped  into  the  experience  of  his  friends. 
He  confronted  circumstances  with  the  same  composed  and 
indomitable  resolution,  and  it  was  not  possible  to  tell  whether 
he  were  entertaining  angels,  or  wrestling  with  demons,  in 
the  secret  chambers  of  his  soul.  There  are  passages  in 
letters  to  his  wife  which  indicate,  and  they  only  by  impli- 
cation, that  his  character  was  tried  and  tempered  by  strug- 
gles. Those  most  intimate  letters,  however,  are  full  of 
expressions  of  religious  faith  and  dependence,  sometimes 
uttered  with  a  kind  of  clinging  earnestness,  as  if  he  well 
knew  the  value  of  the  peace  that  passes  understanding. 
But  nothing  of  all  this  appeared  in  his  friendly  inter- 
course with  men.  He  had,  however,  very  few  intimate 
friends  among  men.  His  warmest  and  most  confiding 
friendships  were  with  women.  In  his  intercourse  with 
them,  he  revealed  a  rare  and  beautiful  sense  of  the  uses 
of  friendship,  which  united  him  very  closely  to  them.  To 
men  he  was  much  more  inaccessible.  It  cannot  be  denied 
that  the  feeling  of  mystery  in  his  character  affected  the  im- 
pression he  made  upon  various  persons.  It  might  be  called 
as  before,  •  "  haughtiness,"  "  reserve,"  "  coldness,"  or 
"hardness,"  but  it  was  quite  the  same  thing.  It  re- 
pelled many  who  were  otherwise  most  strongly  attracted 
to  him  by  his  books.  In  others,  still,  it  begot  a  slight  dis- 
trust, and  suspicion  of  self-seeking  upon  his  part. 

I  remember  a  little  circumstance,  the  impression  of 
which  is  strictly  in  accordance  with  my  feeling  of  this  sin- 
gular mystery  in  his  character.    We  had  one  day  been 


MEMOIR. 


XXXLX 


sitting  in  the  library,  and  he  had  told  me  his  intention  of 
building  a  little  study  and  working-room,  adjoining  the 
house  :  "  but  I  don't  know,"  he  said,  "  where  or  how  to 
connect  it  with  the  house."  But  I  was  very  well  convinced 
that  he  would  arrange  it  in  the  best  possible  manner,  and 
was  not  surprised  when  he  afterward  wrote  me  that  he  had 
made  a  door  through  the  wall  of  the  library  into  the  new 
building.  This  door  occupied  just  the  space  of  one  of  the 
book-cases  let  into  the  wall,  and,  by  retaining  the  double 
doors  of  the  book-case  precisely  as  they  were,  and  putting- 
false  books  behind  the  glass  of  the  doors,  the  appearaiiw 
of  the  library  was  entirely  tu.ai  terei',  wL  Ue  t  \e  w  Hole  .  'p^i 
rent  book-case,  doors  and  all,  swung  to  and  fro,  at  his  will, 
as  a  private  door.  During  my  next  visit  at  his  house,  I 
was  sitting  very  late  at  night  in  the  library,  with  a  single 
candle,  thinking  that  every  one  had  long  since  retired,  and 
having  quite  forgotten,  in  the  perfectly  familiar  appearance 
of  the  room,  that  the  little  change  had  been  made,  when 
suddenly  one  of  the  book-cases  flew  out.  of  the  wall,  turn- 
ing upon  noiseless  hinges,  and,  out  of  the  perfect  darkness 
behind,  Downing  darted  into  the  room,  while  I  sat  staring 
like  a  benighted  guest  in  the  Castle  of  Otranto.  The  mo- 
ment, the  place,  and  the  circumstance,  were  entirely  har- 
monious with  my  impression  of  the  man. 

Thus,  although,  upon  the  bright  May  morning,  I  had 
crossed  the  river  to  see  a  man  of  transparent  and  simple 
nature,  a  lover  and  poet  of  rural  beauty,  a  man  who  had 
travelled  little,  who  had  made  his  own  way  into  polished 
and  cultivated  social  relations,  as  he  did  into  every  thing 
which  he  mastered,  being  altogether  a  self-made  man — I 
found  the  courteous  and  accomplished  gentleman,  the  quiet 
man  of  the  world,  full  of  tact  and  easy  dignity,  in  whom  it 
was  easy  to  discover  that  lover  and  poet,  though  not  in  the 


si 


MEMOIR. 


form  anticipated.  His  exquisite  regard  for  the  details  of 
life,  gave  a  completeness  to  his  household,  which  is  nowhere 
surpassed.  Fitness  is  the  first  element  of  beauty,  and 
every  thing  in  his  arrangement  was  appropriate.  It  was 
hard  not  to  sigh,  when  contemplating  the  beautiful  results 
he  accomplished  by  taste  and  tact,  and  at  comparatively 
little  pecuniary  expense,  to  think  of  the  sums  elsewhere 
squandered  upon  an  insufficient  and  shallow  splendor. 
Yet,  as  beauty  was,  with  Downing,  life,  and  not  luxury, 
although  he  was,  in  feeling  and  by  actual  profession,  the 
Priest  of  Beauty,  he  was  never  a  Sybarite,  never  sentimen- 
tal, never  weakened  by  the  service.  In  the  dispositions  of 
most  men  devoted  to  beauty,  as  artists  and  poets,  there  is 
a  vein  of  languor,  a  leaning  to  luxury,  of  which  no  trace 
was  even  visible  in  him.  His  habits  of  life  were  singularly 
regular.  He  used  no  tobacco,  drank  little  wine,  and  was 
no  gourmand.  But  he  was  no  ascetic.  He  loved  to  en- 
tertain Sybarites,  poets,  and  the  lovers  of  luxury  :  doubt- 
less from  a  consciousness  that  he  had  the  magic  of  pleasing 
them  more  than  they  had  ever  been  pleased.  He  enjoyed 
the  pleasure  of  his  guests.  The  various  play  of  different 
characters  entertained  him.  Yet  with  all  his  fondness  for 
fine  places,  he  justly  estimated  the  tendency  of  their  in- 
fluence. He  was  not  enthusiastic,  he  was  not  seduced 
into  blindness  by  his  own  preferences,  but  he  main- 
tained that  cool  and  accurate  estimate  of  things  and  ten- 
dencies which  always  made  his  advice  invaluable.  Is  there 
any  truer  account  of  the  syren  influence  of  a  superb 
and  extensive  country-seat  than  the  following  from  the 
paper  :  "  A  Visit  to  Montgomery  Place."  "  It  is  not,  we 
are  sure,  the  spot  for  a  man  to  plan  campaigns  of  con- 
quest, and  we  doubt,  even,  whether  the  scholar  whose  am- 
bition it  is 


MEMOIR. 


Xli 


"  to  scorn  delights, 
And  live  laborious  days," 

would  not  find  something  in  the  air  of  this  demesne  so 
soothing  as  to  dampen  the  fire  of  his  great  purposes,  and 
dispose  him  to  believe  that  there  is  more  dignity  in  repose, 
than  merit  in  action." 

So,  certainly,  I  believed,  as  the  May  days  passed,  and 
found  me  still  lingering  in  the  enchanted  garden. 

In  August,  1846,  "  The  Horticulturist "  was  com- 
menced by  Mr.  Luther  Tucker,  of  Albany,  who  invited 
Mr.  Downing  to  become  the  editor,  in  which  position  he 
remained,  writing  a  monthly  leader  for  it,  until  his 
death.  These  articles  are  contained  in  the  present  vol- 
ume. Literature  offers  no  more  charming  rural  essays. 
They  are  the  thoughtful  talk  of  a  country  gentleman,  and 
scholar,  and  practical  workman,  upon  the  rural  aspects 
and  interests  of  every  month  in  the  year.  They  insinuate 
instruction,  rather  than  directly  teach,  and  in  a  style  mel- 
low, mature,  and  cheerful,  adapted  to  every  age  and  every 
mood.  By  their  variety  of  topic  and  treatment,  they  are, 
perhaps,  the  most  complete  memorial  of  the  man.  Their 
genial  simplicity  fascinated  all  kinds  of  persons.  A  cor- 
respondence which  might  be  called  affectionate,  sprang  up 
between  the  editor  and  scores  of  his  readers.  They  want- 
ed instruction  and  advice.  They  confided  to  him  their 
plans  and  hopes  ;  to  him — the  personally  unknown  "  we  " 
of  their  monthly  magazine — the  reserved  man  whom  pub- 
lishers and  others  found  "  stiff,"  and  "  cold,"  and  "  a  lit- 
tle haughty,"  and  whose  fine  points  of  character  stood  out, 
like  sunny  mountain  peaks  against  a  mist.  These  letters, 
it  appears,  were  personal,  and  full  of  feeling.  The 
writers  wished  to  know  the  man,  to  see  his  portrait,  and 
many  requested  him  to  have  it  published  in  the  "  fiorti- 


xlii 


MEMOIR. 


culturist."  When  in  his  neighborhood,  these  correspond- 
ents came  to  visit  him.  They  were  anxious  "  to  see  the 
man  who  had  written  books  which  had  enabled  them  to 
make  their  houses  beautiful,  —  which  had  helped  their 
wives  in  the  flower-garden,  and  had  shown  them  how,  with 
little  expense,  to  decorate  their  humble  parlors,  and  add  a 
grace  to  the  barrenness  of  daily  life."  All  this  was  better 
than  Queen  Anne's  "  magnificent  ring." 

Meanwhile,  business  in  the  nursery  looked  a  little 
threatening.  Money  was  always  dropping  from  the  hos]:>i- 
table  hand  of  the  owner.  Expenses  increased — affairs 
became  complicated.  It  is  not  the  genius  of  men  like 
Downing  to  manage  the  finances  very  skilfully.  "Every 
tree  that  he  sold  for  a  dollar,  cost  him  ten  shillings  ;  " — 
which  is  not  a  money-making  process.  He  was  perhaps 
too  lavish,  too  careless,  too  sanguine.  "  Had  his  income 
been  a  milhon  a  minute,  he  would  always  have  been 
in  debt,"  says  one  who  knew  him  well.  The  composed 
manner  was  as  unruffled  as  ever  ;  the  regal  will  preserved 
the  usual  appearance  of  things,  but  in  the  winter  of 
1846-7  Mr.  Downing  was  seriously  embarrassed.  It  was 
a  very  grave  juncture,  for  it  was  likely  that  he  would 
be  obliged  to  leave  his  house  and  begin  life  again.  But 
his  friends  rallied  to  the  rescue.  They  assured  to  him 
his  house  and  grounds ;  and  he,  without  losing  time, 
without  repining,  and  with  the  old  determination,  went  to 
work  more  industriously  than  ever.  His  attention  was 
unremitting  to  the  "Horticulturist,"  and  to  all  the  projects 
he  had  undertaken.  His  interest  in  the  management  of  the 
nursery,  however,  decreased,  and  he  devoted  himself  with 
more  energy  to  rural  architecture  and  landscape  gardening, 
until  he  gradually  discontinued  altogether  the  raising  of 
trees  for  sale.    His  house  was  still  the  resort  of  the  most 


MEMOIR. 


xliii 


brilliant  society ;  still — as  it  always  had  been,  and  was,  until 
the  end — the  seat  of  beautiful  hospitality.  He  was  often 
enough  perplexed  in  his  affairs — hurried  by  the  monthly 
recurring  necessity  of  "  the  leader,"  and  not  quite  satisfied 
at  any  time  until  that  literary  task  was  accomplished. 
His  business  confined  and  interested  him ;  his  large  cor- 
respondence was  promptly  managed  ;  but  he  was  still  san- 
guine, under  that  Spanish  reserve,  and  still  spent  profusely. 
He  had  a  thousand  interests  ;  a  State  agricultural  school, 
a  national  agricultural  bureau  at  Washington,  designing  pri- 
vate and  public  buildings,  laying  out  large  estates,  pursuing 
his  own  scientific  and  literary  studies,  and  preparing  a  work 
upon  Kural  Architecture.  From  his  elegant  home  he  was 
scattering,  in  the  Horticulturist,  pearl-seed  of  precious 
suggestion,  which  fell  in  all  kinds  of  secluded  and  remote 
regions,  and  bore,  and  are  bearing,  costly  fruit. 

In  1849,  Mr.  John  Wiley  published  "  Hints  to  Young- 
Architects,  by  George  Wightwick,  Architect  ;  with  Ad- 
ditional Notes  and  Hints  to  Persons  about  Building  in 
this  Country,  by  A.  J.  Downing."  It  was  a  work  prepar- 
atory to  the  original  one  he  designed  to  publish,  and  full 
of  most  valuable  suggestions.  For  in  every  thing  he  was 
American.  His  sharp  sense  of  propriety  as  the  primal 
element  of  beauty,  led  him  constantly  to  insist  that  the 
place,  and  circumstances,  and  time,  should  always  be  care- 
fully considered  before  any  step  was  taken.  The  satin 
shoe  was  a  grace  in  the  parlor,  but  a  deformity  in  the  gar- . 
den.  The  Parthenon  was  perfect  in  a  certain  climate, 
under  certain  conditions,  and  for  certain  purposes.  But 
the  Parthenon  as  a  country  mansion  in  the  midst  of 
American  woods  and  fields  was  unhandsome  and  offensive. 
His  aim  in  building  a  house  was  to  adapt  it  to  the  site, 
and  to  the  means  and  character  of  the  owner. 


xliv 


MEMOIR. 


It  was  in  the  autumn  of  1849  that  Frederika  Bre- 
mer came  to  America.  She  had  been  for  several  years 
in  intimate  correspondence  with  Mr.  Downing,  and  was 
closely  attracted  to  him  by  a  profound  sympathy  with  his 
view  of  the  dignity  and  influence  of  the  home.  He  re- 
ceived Miss  Bremer  upon  her  arrival,  and  she  went  with 
him  to  his  house,  where  she  staid  several  weeks,  and  wrote 
there  the  introduction  to  the  authorized  American  edition 
of  her  works.  It  is  well  for  us,  perhaps,  that  as  she  has 
written  a  work  upon  "  The  Homes  of  the  United  States," 
she  should  have  taken  her  first  impression  of  them  from 
that  of  Mr.  Downing.  During  all  her  travels  in  this 
country  she  constantly  corresponded  with  him  and  his 
wife,  to  whom  she  was  very  tenderly  attached.  Her  letters 
were  full  of  cheerful  humor  and  shrewd  observation.  She 
went  bravely  about  alone,  and  was  treated,  almost  without 
exception,  with  consideration  and  courtesy.  And  after  her 
journey  was  over,  and  she  was  about  to  return  home,  she 
came  to  say  farewell  where  she  had  first  greeted  America, 
in  Downing' s  garden. 

In  this  year  he  finally  resolved  to  devote  himself  entirely 
to  architecture  and  building,  and,  in  order  to  benefit  by  the 
largest  variety  of  experience  in  elegant  rural  life,  and  to  se- 
cure the  services  of  an  accomplished  and  able  architect, 
thoroughly  trained  to  the  business  he  proposed,  Mr.  Downing 
went  to  England  in  the  summer  of  1850,  having  arranged 
with  Messrs.  D.  Appleton  &  Co.  for  the  publication  of 
"  The  Architecture  of  Country  Houses  ;  including  Designs 
for  Cottages,  Farm-houses,  and  Villas." 

Already  in  correspondence  with  the  leading  Englishmen 
in  his  department,  Mr.  Downing  was  at  once  cordially 
welcomed.  He  showed  the  admirable,  and  not  the  un- 
friendly, qualities  of  his  countrymen,  and  was  directly  en- 


MEMOIR. 


xlv 


gaged  in  a  series  of  visits  to  the  most  extensive  and 
remarkable  of  English  country  seats,  where  he  was  an 
honored  guest.  The  delight  of  the  position  was  beyond 
words  to  a  man  of  his  peculiar  character  and  habits. 
He  saw  on  every  hand  the  perfection  of  elegant  rural  life, 
which  was  his  ideal  of  life.  He  saw  the  boundless  parks, 
the  cultivated  landscape,  the  tropics  imprisoned  in  glass  ; 
he  saw  spacious  Italian  villas,  more  Italian  than  in  Italy  ; 
every  various  triumph  of  park,  garden,  and  country- 
house.  But  with  these,  also,  he  met  in  the  pleasantest 
way  much  fine  English  society,  which  was  his  ideal  of 
society.  There  was  nothing  wanting  to  gratify  his  fine 
and  fastidious  taste  ;  but  the  passage  already  quoted  from 
his  letter  at  Warwick  Castle  shows  how  firmly  his  faith 
was  set  upon  his  native  land,  while  his  private  letters  are 
full  of  affectionate  longing  to  return.  It  is  easy  to  figure 
him  moving  with  courtly  grace  through  the  rooms  of 
palaces,  gentle,  respectful,  low  in  tone,  never  exaggerating, 
welcome  to  lord  and  lady  for  his  good  sense,  his  practical 
knowledge,  his  exact  detail ;  pleasing  the  English  man  and 
woman  by  his  English  sympathies,  and  interesting  them  by 
his  manly  and  genuine,  not  boasting,  assertions  of  Ameri- 
can genius  and  success.  Looking  at  the  picture,  one  re- 
members again  that  earlier  one  of  the  boy  coming  home 
from  Montgomery  Academy,  in  Orange  County,  and  intro- 
duced at  the  wealthy  neighbor's  to  the  English  gentleman. 
The  instinct  that  remembered  so  slight  an  event  secured 
his  appreciation  of  all  that  England  offered.  No  Ameri- 
can ever  visited  England  with  a  mind  more  in  tune  with 
all  that  is  nobly  characteristic  of  her.  He  remarked,  upon 
his  return,  that  he  had  been  much  impressed  by  the  quiet, 
religious  life  and  habits  which  he  found  in  many  great 
English  houses.    It  is  not  a  point  of  English  life  often 


xlvi 


MEMOIR. 


noticed,  nor  presupposed,  but  it  was  doubly  grateful  to 
him,  because  lie  was  always  a  Christian  believer,  and  be- 
cause all  parade  was  repugnant  to  him.  His  letters  before 
his  marriage,  and  during  the  last  years  of  his  life,  evince 
the  most  genuine  Christian  faith  and  feeling. 

His  residence  in  England  was  very  brief — a  summer 
trip.  He  crossed  to  Paris  and  saw  French  life.  For- 
tunately, as  his  time  was  short,  he  saw  more  in  a  day 
than  most  men  in  a  month,  because  he  was  prepared 
to  see,  and  knew  where  to  look.  He  found  the  assistant 
he  wished  in  Mr.  Calvert  Vaux,  a  young  English  ar- 
chitect, to  whom  he  was  introduced  by  the  Secretary 
of  the  Architectural  Association,  and  with  whom,  so 
mutual  was  the  satisfaction,  he  directly  concluded  an 
agreement.  Mr.  Vaux  sailed  with  him  from  Liverpool 
in  September,  presently  became  his  partner  in  business, 
and  commanded,  to  the  end,  Mr.  Downing's  unreserved 
confidence  and  respect. 

I  remember  a  Christmas  visit  to  Downing  in  1850,  after 
his  return  from  Europe,  when  we  all  danced  to  a  fiddle  upon 
the  marble  pavement  of  the  hall,  by  the  light  of  rustic 
chandeliers  wreathed  with  Christmas  green,  and  under  the 
antlers,  and  pikes,  and  helmets,  and  breastplates,  and 
plumed  hats  of  cavaliers,  that  hung  upon  the  walls.  The 
very  genius  of  English  Christmas  ruled  the  revel. 

During  these  years  he  was  engaged  in  superintending 
the  various  new  editions  of  his  works,  and  looking  forward 
to  larger  achievements  with  maturer  years.  He  designed 
a  greatly  enlarged  edition  of  the  "  Fruit-Trees,"  and 
spoke  occasionally  of  the  "  Shade-Trees,"  as  a  work  which, 
would  be  of  the  greatest  practical  value.  He  was  much 
interested  in  the  establishment  of  the  Pomological  Con- 
gress, was  chairman  of  its  fruit  committee  from  the  begin- 


MEMOIR. 


xlvii 


ning,  and  drew  up  the  "Kules  of  American  Pomology." 
Every  moment  had  its  work.  There  was  not  a  more  use- 
ful man  in  America  ;  but  his  visitor  found  still  the  same 
quiet  host,  leisurely,  disengaged ;  picking  his  favorite 
ilowers  before  breakfast ;  driving  here  and  there,  writing, 
studying,  as  if  rather  for  amusement  ;  and  at  twilight 
stepping  into  the  wagon  for  a  loitering  drive  along  the 
river. 

His  love  of  the  country  and  faith  in  rural  influences 
were  too  genuine  for  him  not  to  be  deeply  interested  in  the 
improvement  of  cities  by  means  of  public  parks  and  gar- 
dens. Not  only  for  their  sanitary  use,  but  for  their  ele- 
gance and  refining  influence,  he  was  anxious  that  all  our 
cities  should  be  richly  endowed  with  them.  He  alluded 
frequently  to  the  subject  in  the  columns  of  his  magazine, 
and  when  it  was  resolved  by  Congress  to  turn  the  public 
grounds  in  Washington,  near  the  Capitol,  White  House, 
and.  Smithsonian  Institute,  into  a  public  garden  and  pro- 
menade, Downing  was  naturally  the  man  invited  by  the 
President,  in  April,  1851,  to  design  the  arrangement  of  the 
grounds  and  to  superintend  their  execution.  All  the  de- 
signs and  much  of  the  work  were  completed  before  his 
death.  This  new  labor,  added  to  the  rest,  while  it  in- 
creased his  income,  consumed  much  of  his  time.  He  went 
once  every  month  to  Washington,  and  was  absent  ten  or 
twelve  days. 

He  was  not  suffered  to  be  at  peace  in  this  position. 
There  were  plenty  of  jealousies  and  rivalries,  and  much 
sharp  questioning  about  the  $2500  annually  paid  to  an 
accomplished  artist  for  laying  out  the  public  grounds  of 
the  American  Capital,  in  a  manner  worthy  the  nation,  and 
for  reclaiming  many  acres  from  waste  and  the  breeding  of 
miasma.   At  length  the  matter  was  discussed  in  Congress. 


xlviii 


MEMOIR. 


On  the  24th  March,  1852,  during  a  debate  upon  various 
appropriations,  Mr.  Jones,  of  Tennessee,  moved  to  strike 
out  the  sum  of  $12,000,  proposed  to  complete  the  im- 
provements around  the  President's  house  ;  complained  that 
there  were  great  abuses  under  the  proviso  of  this  appro- 
priation, and  declared,  quite  directly,  that  Mr.  Downing 
was  overpaid  for  his  services.  Mr.  Stanton,  of  Kentucky, 
replied  : — "  It  is  astonishing  to  my  mind — and  I  have  no 
doubt  to  the  minds  of  others — with  what  facility  other- 
wise intelligent  and  respectable  gentlemen  on  this  floor 
can  deal  out  wholesale  denunciations  of  men  about  whom 
they  know  nothing,  and  will  not  inform  themselves  ;  and 
how  much  the  legislation  of  the  country  is  controlled  by 
prejudices  thus  invoked  and  clamor  thus  raised."  After 
speaking  of  the  bill  under  which  the  improvements  were 
making,  he  continued  :  "  The  President  was  authorized  to 
appoint  some  competent  person  to  superintend  the  carrying 
out  of  the  plan  adopted.  He  appointed  Mr.  Downing.  And 
who  is  he  ?  One  of  the  most  accomplished  gentlemen  in  his 
profession  in  the  Union  ;  a  man  known  to  the  world  as  pos- 
sessing rare  skill  as  a  1  rural  architect'  and  landscape  garden- 
er, as  well  as  a  man  of  great  scientific  intelligence.  *  *  *  * 
I  deny  that  he  has  neglected  his  duties,  as  the  gentleman 
from  Tennessee  has  charged.  Instead  of  being  here  only 
three  days  in  the  month,  he  has  been  here  vigilantly  dis- 
charging his  duties  at  all  times  when  those  duties  required 
him  to  be  here.  He  has  superintended,  directed,  and 
carried  out  the  plan  adopted,  as  fully  as  the  funds  appro- 
priated have  enabled  him  to  do.  If  all  the  officers  of  the 
Government  had  been  as  conscientious  and  scrupulous  in 
the  discharge  of  their  duties  as  he  has  been  since  his 
appointment,  there  would  be  no  ground  for  reproaches 
against  those  who  have  control  of  the  Government." 


MEMOIR. 


xlix 


Mr.  Downing  was  annoyed  by  this  continual  carping  and 
bickering,  and  anxious  to  have  the  matter  definitely  ar- 
ranged, he  requested  the  President  to  summon  the  Cabinet. 
The  Secretaries  assembled,  and  Mr.  Downing  was  presented. 
He  explained  the  case  as  he  understood  it,  unrolled  his 
plans,  stated  his  duties,  and  the  time  he  devoted  to 
them,  and  the  salary  he  received.  He  then  added,  that 
he  wished  the  arrangement  to  be  clearly  understood. 
If  the  President  and  Cabinet  thought  that  his  require- 
ments were  extravagant,  he  was  perfectly  willing  to  roll  up 
his  plans,  and  return  home.  If  they  approved  them,  he 
would  gladly  remain,  but  upon  the  express  condition  that 
he  was  to  be  relieved  from  the  annoyances  of  the  quarrel. 
The  President  and  Cabinet  agreed  that  his  plans  were  the 
best,  and  his  demands  reasonable  ;  and  the  work  went  on 
in  peace  from  that  time. 

The  year  1852  opened  upon  Downing,  in  the  gar- 
den where  he  had  played  and  dreamed  alone,  while  the 
father  tended  the  trees ;  and  to  which  he  had  clung,  with 
indefeasible  instinct,  when  the  busy  mother  had  suggested 
that  her  delicate  boy  would  thrive  better  as  a  drygoods 
clerk.  He  was  just  past  his  thirty-sixth  birth-day,  and 
the  FishMll  mountains,  that  had  watched  the  boy  depart- 
ing for  the  academy  where  he  was  to  show  no  sign  of 
his  power,  now  beheld  him,  in  the  bloom  of  manhood, 
honored  at  home  and  abroad — no  man,  in  fact,  more 
honored  at  home  than  he.  Yet  the  honor  sprang  from 
the  work  that  had  been  achieved  in  that  garden.  It 
was  there  he  had  thought,  and  studied,  and  observed. 
It  was  to  that  home  he  returned  from  his  little  excur- 
sions, to  ponder  upon  the  new  things  he  had  seen  and 
heard,  to  try  them  by  the  immutable  principles  of  taste, 
and  to  test  them  by  rigorous  proofs.  It  was  from  that 
4 


1 


MEMOIR. 


home  that  he  looked  upon  the  landscape  which,  as  it 
allured  his  youth,  now  satisfied  his  manhood.  The  moun- 
tains, upon  whose  shoreward  slope  his  wife  was  born  under 
the  blossoming  locusts  on  the  very  day  on  which  he  was 
born  in  the  Newburgh  garden,  smiled  upon  his  success  and 
shared  it.  He  owed  them  a  debt  he  never  disavowed. 
Below  his  house  flowed  the  river  of  which  he  so  proudly 
wrote  in  the  preface  to  the  "Fruit-Trees" — "A  man  born 
on  the  banks  of  one  of  the  noblest  and  most  fruitful  rivers 
in  America,  and  whose  best  days  have  been  spent  in  gardens 
and  orchards,  may  perhaps  be  pardoned  for  talking  about 
fruit-trees."  Over  the  gleaming  bay  which  the  river's  ex- 
pansion at  Newburgh  forms,  glided  the  dazzling  summer 
days  ;  or  the  black  thunder-gusts  swept  suddenly  out 
from  the  bold  highlands  of  West  Point  ;  or  the  winter 
landscape  lay  calm  around  the  garden.  From  his  windows 
he  saw  all  the  changing  glory  of  the  year.  New- York  was 
of  easy  access  by  the  steamers  that  constantly  passed  to 
and  from  Albany  and  the  river  towns,  and  the  railroad 
brought  the  city  within  three  hours  of  his  door.  It 
brought  constant  visitors  also,  from  the  city  and  beyond ; 
and  scattered  up  and  down  the  banks  of  the  Hudson  were 
the  beautiful  homes  of  friends,  with  whom  he  was  con- 
stantly in  the  exchange  of  the  most  unrestrained  hospi- 
tality. He  added  to  his  house  the  working-room  commu- 
nicating with  the  library  by  the  mysterious  door,  and  was 
deej)ly  engaged  in  the  planning  and  building  of  country- 
houses  in  every  direction.  Among  these  I  may  mention,  as 
among  the  last  and  finest,  the  summer  residence  of  Daniel 
Parish,  Esq.,  at  Newport,  R.  I.  Mr.  Downing  knew  that 
Newport  was  the  great  social  exchange  of  the  country,  that 
men  of  wealth  and  taste  yearly  assembled  there,  and  that 
a  fine  house  of  his  desigring  erected  there  would  be  of  the 


MEMOIR. 


li 


greatest  service  to  his  art.  This  house  is  at  once  simple, 
massive,  and  graceful,  as  becomes  the  spot.  It  is  the  work 
of  an  artist,  in  the  finest  sense,  harmonious  with  the  bare 
cliff  and  the  sea.  But  even  where  his  personal  services 
were  not  required,  his  books  were  educating  taste,  and  his 
influence  was  visible  in  hundreds  of  houses  that  he  had 
never  seen.  He  edited,  during  this  year,  Mrs.  Loudon's 
Gardening  for  Ladies,  which  was  published  by  Mr.  John 
Wiley.  No  man  was  a  more  practically  useful  friend  to 
thousands  who  did  not  know  him.  Yet  if,  at  any  time, 
while  his  house  was  full  of  visitors,  business  summoned 
him,  as  it  frequently  did,  he  slipped  quietly  out  of  the 
gate,  left  the  visitors  to  a  care  as  thoughtful  and  beau- 
tiful as  his  own,  and  his  house  was  made  their  home 
for  the  time  they  chose  to  remain.  Downing  was  in 
his  thirty-seventh  year,  in  the  fulness  of  his  fame  and 
power.  The  difficulties  of  the  failure  were  gradually  dis- 
appearing behind  him  like  clouds  rolling  away.  He  stood 
in  his  golden  prime,  as  in  his  summer  garden  ;  the  Fu- 
ture smiled  upon  him  like  the  blue  Fishkill  hills  beyond 
the  river.    That  Future,  also,  lay  beyond  the  river. 

At  the  end  of  June,  1852,  I  went  to  pass  a  few  days 
with  him.  He  held  an  annual  feast  of  roses  with  as  many 
friends  as  he  could  gather  and  his  house  could  hold.  The 
days  of  my  visit  had  all  the  fresh  sweetness  of  early  sum- 
mer, and  the  garden  and  the  landscape  were  fuller  than 
ever  of  grace  and  beauty.  It  was  an  Arcadian  chapter, 
with  the  roses  and  blossoming  figs  upon  the  green-house 
wall,  and  the  music  by  moonlight,  and  reading  of  songs, 
and  tales,  and  games  upon  the  lawn,  under  the  Warwick 
vase.  Boccaccio's  groups  in  their  Fiesole  garden,  were  not 
gayer ;  nor  the  blithe  circle  of  a  summer's  day  upon  Sir 
Walter  Vivian's  lawn.    Indeed  it  was  precisely  in  Down- 


Bi 


MEMOIR. 


ing's  garden  that  the  poetry  of  such  old  traditions  became 
fact — or  rather  the  fact  was  lifted  into  that  old  poetry. 
He  had  achieved  in  it  the  beauty  of  an  extreme  civiliza- 
tion, without  losing  the  natural,  healthy  vigor  of  his  coun- 
try and  time. 

One  evening — the  moon  was  full — we  crossed  in  a  row- 
boat  to  the  FishMll  shore,  and  floated  upon  the  gleaming 
river  under  the  black  banks  of  foliage  to  a  quaint  old  coun- 
try-house, in  whose  small  library  the  Society  of  the  Cin- 
cinnati was  formed,  at  the  close  of  the  Eevolution,  and  in 
whose  rooms  a  pleasant  party  was  gathered  that  summer 
evening.  The  doors  and  windows  were  open.  We  stood 
in  the  rooms  or  loitered  upon  the  piazza,  looking  into  the 
unspeakable  beauty  of  the  night.  A  lady  was  pointed  out 
to  me  as  the  heroine  of  a  romantic  history — a  handsome 
woman,  with  the  traces  of  hard  experience  in  her  face, 
standing  in  that  little  peaceful  spot  of  summer  moonlight, 
as  a  child  snatching  a  brief  dream  of  peace  between 
spasms  of  mortal  agony.  As  we  returned  at  midnight 
across  the  river,  Downing  told  us  more  of  the  stranger 
lady,  and  of  his  early  feats  of  swimming  from  Newburgh 
to  Fishkill ;  and  so  we  drifted  homeward  upon  the  oily 
calm  with  talk,  and  song,  and  silence — a  brief,  beautiful 
voyage  upon  the  water,  where  the  same  summer,  while  yet 
unfaded,  should  see  him  embarked  upon  a  longer  journey. 
In  these  last  days  he  was  the  same  generous,  thoughtful, 
quiet,  effective  person  I  had  always  found  him.  Friends 
peculiarly  dear  to  him  were  in  his  house.  The  Washing- 
ton work  was  advancing  finely  :  he  was  much  interested  in 
his  Newport  plans,  and  we  looked  forward  to  a  gay  meet- 
ing there  in  the  later  summer.  The  time  for  his  monthly 
trip  to  Washington  arrived  while  I  was  still  his  guest. 
"We  shall  meet  in  Newport,"  I  said.    "Yes/'  he  an- 


MEMOIR. 


liii 


swered,  "but  you  must  stay  and  keep  house  with  my 
wife  until  I  return." 

I  was  gone  before  he  reached  home  again,  but,  with 
many  who  wished  to  consult  him  about  houses  they  were 
building,  and  with  many  whom  he  honored  and  wished  to 
know,  awaited  his  promised  visit  at  Newport. 

Mr.  Downing  had  intended  to  leave  Newburgh  with  his 
wife  upon  Tuesday,  the  27th  of  July,  when  they  would 
have  taken  one  of  the  large  river  steamers  for  New- York. 
But  his  business  prevented  his  leaving  upon  that  day,  and  it 
was  postponed  to  Wednesday,  the  28th  of  July,  on  which 
day  only  the  two  smaller  boats,  the  "  Henry  Clay "  and 
the  "  Armenia  "  were  running.  Upon  reaching  the  wharf, 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Downing  met  her  mother,  Mrs.  De  Whit, 
with  her  youngest  son  and  daughter,  and  the  lady  who  had 
been  pointed  out  as  the  heroine  of  a  tragedy.  But  this 
morning  she  was  as  sunny  as  the  day,  which  was  one  of 
the  loveliest  of  summer. 

The  two  steamers  were  already  in  sight,  coming  down 
the  river,  and  there  was  a  little  discussion  in  the  party  as 
to  which  they  would  take.  But  the  "  Henry  Clay  "  was 
the  largest  and  reached  the  wharf  first.  Mr.  Downing 
and  his  party  embarked,  and  soon  perceived  that  the  two 
boats  were  desperately  racing.  The  circumstance  was, 
however,  too  common  to  excite  any  apprehension  in  the 
minds  of  the  party,  or  even  to  occasion  remark.  They  sat 
upon  the  deck  enjoying  the  graceful  shores  that  fled  by 
them — a  picture  on  the  air.  Mr.  Downing  was  engaged 
in  lively  talk  with  his  companion,  who  had  never  been  to 
Newport  and  was  very  curious  to  see  and  share  its  brilliant 
life.  They  had  dined,  and  the  boat  was  within  twenty 
miles  of  New- York,  in  a  broad  reach  of  the  river  between 
the  Palisades  and  the  town  of  Yonkers,  when  Mrs.  Down- 


MEMOIR. 


ing  observed  a  slight  smoke  blowing  toward  them  from  the 
centre  of  the  boat.  She  spoke  of  it,  rose,  and  said  they 
had  better  go  into  the  cabin.  Her  husband  replied,  no, 
that  they  were  as  safe  where  they  then  were  as  any  where. 
Mrs.  Downing,  however,  went  into  the  cabin  where  her 
mother  was  sitting,  knitting,  with  her  daughter  by  her 
side.  There  was  little  time  to  say  any  thing.  The  smoke 
rapidly  increased  ;  all  who  could  reach  it  hurried  into  the 
cabin.  The  thickening  smoke  poured  in  after  the  crowd, 
who  were  nearly  suffocated. 

The  dense  mass  choked  the  door,  and  Mr.  Down- 
ing's  party  instinctively  rushed  to  the  cabin  windows  to 
escape.  They  climbed  through  them  to  the  narrow  pas- 
sage between  the  cabin  and  the  bulwarks  of  the  boat, 
the  crowd  pressing  heavily,  shouting,  crying,  despairing, 
and  suffocating  in  the  smoke  that  now  fell  upon  them 
in  black  clouds.  Suddenly  Mr.  Downing  said,  "  They  are 
running  her  ashore,  and  we  shall  all  be  taken  off."  He 
led  them  round  to  the  stern  of  the  boat,  thinking  to  escape 
more  readily  from  the  other  side,  but  there  saw  a  person 
upon  the  shore  waving  them  back,  so  they  returned  to 
their  former  place.  The  flames  began  now  to  crackle  and 
roar  as  they  crept  along  the  woodwork  from  the  boiler,  and 
the  pressure  of  the  throng  toward  the  stern  was  frightful. 
Mr.  Downing  was  seen  by  his  wife  to  step  upon  the  railing, 
with  his  coat  tightly  buttoned,  ready  for  a  spring  upon  the 
upper  deck.  At  that  moment  she  was  borne  away  by  the 
crowd  and  saw  him  no  more.  Their  friend,  who  had  been 
conversing  with  Mr.  Downing,  was  calm  but  pale  with 
alarm.  "  What  will  become  of  us  ?  "  said  one  of  these 
women,  in  this  frightful  extremity  of  peril,  as  they  held 
each  other's  hands  and  were  removed  from  all  human  help. 
"  May  God  have  mercy  upon  us,"  answered  the  other. 


MEMOIR. 


lv 


Upon  the  instant  they  were  separated  by  the  swaying 
crowd,  but  Mrs.  Downing  still  kept  near  her  mother,  and 
sister,  and  brother.  The  flames  were  now  within  three 
yards  of  them,  and  her  brother  said,  "  We  must  get  over- 
board." Yet  she  still  held  some  books  and  a  parasol  in 
her  hand,  not  yet  able  to  believe  that  this  was  Death  creep- 
ing along  the  deck.  She  turned  and  looked  for  her  hus- 
band. She  could  not  see  him  and  called  his  name.  Her 
voice  was  lost  in  that  wild  whirl  and  chaos  Df  frenzied  de- 
spair, and  her  brother  again  said  to  her,  "  You  must  get 
overboard."  In  that  moment  the  daughter  looked  upon 
the  mother — the  mother,  who  had  said  to  her  daughter's 
husband  when  he  asked  her  hand,  "  She  has  been  the  comfort 
of  her  mother's  heart,  and  the  solace  of  her  hours,"  and 
she  saw  that  her  mother's  face  was  "  full  of  the  terrible  re- 
ality and  inevitable  necessity "  that  awaited  them.  The 
crowd  choked  them,  the  flames  darted  toward  them  ;  the 
brother  helped  them  upon  the  railing  and  they  leaped  into 
the  water. 

Mrs.  Downing  stretched  out  her  hands,  and  grasped 
two  chairs  that  floated  near  her,  and  lying  quietly  upon 
her  back,  was  buoyed  up  by  the  chairs  ;  then  seizing  an- 
other that  was  passing  her,  and  holding  two  in  one  hand 
and  one  in  the  other,  she  floated  away  from  the  smoking 
and  blazing  wreck,  from  the  shrieking  and  drowning  crowd, 
past  the  stern  of  the  boat  that  lay  head  in  to  the  shore, 
past  the  blackened  fragments,  away  from  the  roaring  death 
struggle  into  the  calm  water  of  the  river,  calling  upon  God 
to  save  her.  She  could  see  the  burning  boat  below  her, 
three  hundred  yards,  perhaps,  but  the  tide  was  coming  in, 
and  after  floating  some  little  distance  up  the  river,  a  current 
turned  her  directly  toward  the  shore.  Where  the  water 
was  yet  too  deep  for  her  to  stand,  she  was  grasped  by  a 


Ivi 


MEMOIR. 


man,  drawn  toward  the  bank,  and  there,  rinding  that  she 
could  stand,  she  was  led  out  of  the  water  by  two  men. 
With  the  rest  of  the  bewildered,  horror-stunned  people, 
she  walked  up  and  down  the  margin  of  the  river  looking 
for  her  husband.  Her  brother  and  sister  met  her  as  she 
walked  here — a  meeting  more  sad  than  joyful.  Still  the 
husband  did  not  come,  nor  the  mother,  nor  that  friend 
who  had  implored  the  mercy  of  Grod.  Mrs.  Downing  was 
sure  that  her  husband  was  safe.  He  had  come  ashc/re 
above — he  was  still  floating  somewhere — he  had  been  pick- 
ed up — he  had  swam  out  to  some  sloop  in  the  river — he 
was  busy  rescuing  the  drowning — he  was  doing  his  duty 
somewhere — he  could  not  be  lost. 

She  was  persuaded  into  a  little  house,  where  she  sat  at 
a  window  until  nightfall,  watching  the  wreck  and  the  con- 
fusion. Then  she  was  taken  home  upon  the  railroad.  The 
neighbors  and  friends  came  to  her  to  pass  the  night.  They 
sat  partly  in  the  house  and  partly  stood  watching  at  the 
door  and  upon  the  piazza,  waiting  for  news  from  the  mes- 
sengers who  came  constantly  from  the  wreck.  Mr.  Vaux 
and  others  left  directly  for  the  wreck,  and  remained  there 
until  the  end.  The  wife  clung  to  her  hope,  but  lay  very 
ill,  in  the  care  of  the  physician.  The  day  dawned  over 
that  blighted  garden,  and  in  the  afternoon  they  told  her 
that  the  body  of  her  husband  had  been  found,  and  they 
were  bringing  it  home.  A  young  woman  who  had  been 
saved  from  the  wreck  and  sat  trembling  in  the  house,  then 
said  what  until  then  it  had  been  impossible  for  her  to  say, 
that,  at  the  last  moment,  Mr.  Downing  had  told  her  how 
to  sustain  herself  in  the  water,  but  that  before  she  was 
compelled  to  leap,  she  saw  him  struggling  in  the  river 
with  his  friend  and  others  clinging  to  him.  Then  she 
heard  him  utter  a  prayer  to  God,  and  saw  him  no  more. 


MEMOIR. 


Ivii 


Another  had  seen  him  upon  the  upper  deck,  probably 
just  after  his  wife  lost  sight  of  him,  throwing  chairs  into 
the  river  to  serve  as  supports ;  nor  is  it  too  improbable 
that  the  chairs  upon  which  his  wife  floated  to  shore  were 
among  those  he  had  so  thoughtfully  provided. 

In  the  afternoon,  they  brought  him  home,  and  laid  him 
in  his  library.  A  terrific  storm  burst  over  the  river  and 
crashed  among  the  hills,  and  the  wild  sympathy  of  nature 
surrounded  that  blasted  home.  But  its  master  lay  serene 
in  the  peace  of  the  last  prayer  he  uttered.  Loving  hands 
had  woven  garlands  of  the  fragrant  blossoms  of  the  Cape 
jessamine,  the  sweet  clematis,  and  the  royal  roses  he  loved 
so  well.  The  next  morning  was  calm  and  bright,  and  he 
was  laid  in  the  graveyard,  where  his  father  and  mother 
lie.  The  quiet  Fishkill  mountains,  that  won  the  love  of  the 
shy  boy  in  the  garden,  now  watch  the  grave  of  the  man, 
who  was  buried,  not  yet  thirty-seven  years  old,  but  with 
great  duties  done  in  this  world,  and  with  firm  faith  in  the 
divine  goodness. 

"Unwatch'd,  the  garden  bough  shall -sway, 
The  tender  blossom  flutter  down, 
Unloved,  that  beech  will  gather  brown, 
This  maple  burn  itself  away ; 

"  Unloved,  the  sun-flower,  shining  fair 
Kay  round  with  flame  her  disk  of  seed, 
And  many  a  rose-carnation  feed 
"With  summer  spice  the  humming  air. 

"  Unloved,  by  many  a  sandy  bar 

The  brook  shall  babble  down  the  plain, 
At  noon,  or  when  the  lesser  wain 
Is  twisting  round  the  polar  star ; 

"  Uncared  for,  gird  the  windy  grove, 

And  flood  the  haunts  of  hern  and  crake ; 


MEMOIR. 

Or  into  silver  arrows  break, 
The  sailing  moon  in  creek  and  cove ; 

"  Till  from  the  garden  and  the  wild, 
A  fresh  association  blow, 
And  year  by  year,  the  landscape  grow 
Familiar  to  the  stranger's  child  ; 

"  As,  year  by  year,  the  laborer  tills 
His  wonted  glebe,  or  lops  the  glades ; 
And  year  by  year  our  memory  fades 
From  all  the  circle  of  the  hills." 


* 


A  LETTER  FROM  MISS  BREMER. 


TO  THE  FRIENDS  OF  A.  J.  DOWNING. 


Stockholm,  November,  1852. 

HEEE?  before  me,  are  the  pages  on  which,  a  noble  and 
refined  spirit  has  breathed  his  mind.  He  is  gone,  he 
breathes  no  more  on  earth  to  adorn  and  ennoble  it  ;  but 
in  these  pages  his  mind  still  speaks  to  us — his  eye,  his 
discerning  spirit  still  guides  and  directs  Us.  Thank  God, 
there  is  immortality  even  on  earth  !  Thank  God,  the  work 
of  the  good,  the  word  of  the  noble  and  intelligent,  has  in 
it  seeds  of  eternal  growth  ! 

Friends  of  my  friend,  let  us  rejoice,  while  we  weep, 
that  we  still  have  so  much  of  him  left,  so  much  of  him 
with  us,  to  learn  by,  to  beautify  our  homes,  our  loves,  our 
lives ! 

Let  us  be  thankful  that  we  can  turn  to  these  pages, 
which  bear  his  words  and  works,  and  again  there  enjoy  his 
conversation — the  peculiar  glances  of  his  mind  and  eye  at 
the  objects  of  life ;  let  us  thank  the  Giver  of  all  good  things 
for  the  gift  of  such  a  mind  as  his  to  this  imperfect  world  ; 
for  he  understood  and  knew  the  perfect,  and  worked  for 
perfection  wherever  his  word  or  work  could  reach.  But 
not  as  that  personage  ascribed  to  Shakspeare,  to  whom  it 
is  said  :  "  You  seem  to  me  somewhat  surly  and  critical," 


Ixii 


A  LETTER  FROM  MISS  BREMER. 


and  who  answers,  "  It  is  that  I  have  early  seen  the  perfect 
beauty." 

Our  friend  had — even  he — early  seen  the  perfect  beau- 
ty, but  he  was  not  surly  when  he  saw  what  was  not  so. 
His  criticism,  unflinching  as  was  his  eye,  looked  upon 
things  imperfect  or  mistaken  with  a  quiet  rebuke,  more  of 
commiseration  than  of  scorn.  A  smile  of  gentle,  good- 
humored  sarcasm,  or  a  simple,  earnest  statement  of  the 
truth,  were  his  modes  of  condemnation,  and  the  beauty  of 
the  Ideal  and  his  faith  in  its  power  would,  as  a  heavenly 
light,  pierce  through  his  frown.  So  the  real  diamond  will, 
by  a  ray  of  superior  power,  criticize  the  false  one,  and 
make  it  darken  and  shrink  into  nothingness. 

Oh  !  let  me  speak  of  my  friend  to  you,  his  friends, 
though  you  saw  him  more  and  knew  him  for  a  longer  time 
than  I,  the  stranger,  who  came  to  his  home  and  went,  as  a 
passing  bird.  Let  me  speak  of  him  to  you,  for,  though 
you  saw  him  more  and  knew  him  longer,  I  loved  him  bet- 
ter than  all,  save  one — the  sweet  wife  who  made  all  his 
days  days  of  peace  and  pleasantness.  And  the  eye  of  love 
is  clairvoyant.  Let  me  plead  also  with  you  my  right  as  a 
stranger;  for  the  stranger  comes  to  a  new  world  with  fresh 
eyes,  as  those  accustomed  to  snowy  climates  would  be  more 
alive  to  the  peculiar  beauty  of  tropical  life,  than  those  who 
see  it  every  day.  And  it  was  so  that,  when  I  saw  him, 
our  departed  friend,  I  became  aware  of  a  kind  of  individual 
beauty  and  finish,  that  I  had  little  anticipated  to  find  in 
the  New  World,  and  indeed,  had  never  seen  before,  any 
where. 

At  war  with  the  elegant  refinements  and  beauties  of 
life,  to  which  I  was  secretly  bound  by  strong  sympathies, 
but  which  I  looked  upon  as  Samson  should  have  looked  upon 
Delilah,  and  in  love  with  the  ascetic  severities  of  life,  with 


A  LETTER  FROM  MISS  BREMER. 


Ixiii 


S\  John  and  St.  Theresa, — I  used  to  have  a  little  pride 
in  my  disdain  of  things  that  the  greater  part  of  the  world 
look  upon  as  most  desirable.  Still,  I  could  not  but  believe 
that  things  beautiful  and  refined — yea,  even  the  luxuries 
of  life,  had  a  right  to  citizenship  in  the  kingdom  of  Grod. 
And  I  had  said  to  myself,  as  the  young  Quakeress  said  to 
her  mother,  when  reproached  by  her  for  seeking  more  the 
gayeties  of  this  world  than  the  things  made  of  Grod  ; 

"  He  made  the  flowers  and  the  rainbow." 

But  again,  the  saints  and  the  Puritans  after  them,  had 
said,  "  Beauty  is  Temptation,"  and  so  it  has  been  at  all 
times. 

When  I  came  to  the  New  World,  I  was  met  on  the 
shore  by  A.  J.  Downing,  who  had  invited  me  to  his  house. 
By  some  of  his  books  that  I  had  seen,  as  well  as  by  his  let- 
ters, I  knew  him  to  be  a  man  of  a  refined  and  noble  mind. 
When  I  saw  him,  I  was  struck,  as  we  are  by  a  natural  ob- 
ject of  uncommon  cast  or  beauty.  He  took  me  gently  by 
the  hand,  and  led  me  to  his  home.  That  he  became  to  me 
as  a  brother, — that  his  discerning  eye  and  mind  guided  my 
untutored  spirit  with  a  careless  grace,  but  not  the  less  im- 
pressively, to  look  upon  things  and  persons  most  influential 
and  leading  in  the  formation  of  the  life  and  mind  of  the 
people  of  the  United  States,  was  much  to  me  ;  that  he 
became  to  me  a  charming  friend,  whose  care  and  attention 
followed  me  every  where  during  my  pilgrimage, — that  he 
made  a  new  summer  life,  rich  with  the  charm  of  America's 
Indian  summer,  come  in  my  heart,  though  the  affection 
with  which  he  inspired  me,  was  much  to  me ;  yet  what  was 
still  more,  was,  that  in  him  I  learned  to  understand  a  new 
nature,  and  through  him,  to  appreciate  a  new  realm  of 
life. 


bdv 


A  LETTER  FROM  MI6S  BREMER. 


You  will  understand  this  easily  from  what  I  have  just 
stated,  and  when  you  think  of  him,  and  look  on  these  pages 
where  he  has  written  down  his  individual  mind ;  for  if 
ever  writer  incarnated  his  very  nature  in  his  work,  truly 
and  entirely,  it  was  done  by  A.  J.  Downing.  And  if  his 
words  and  works  have  won  authority  all  over  the  United 
States,  wherever  the  mind  of  the  people  has  risen  to  the 
sphere  of  intelligence  and  beauty  ;  if  under  the  snowy  roofs 
of  Concord  in  the  Pilgrim  State,  as  under  the  orange  and 
oak  groves  of  South  Carolina,  I  heard  the  same  words — 
"  Mr.  Downing  has  done  much  for  this  country  •"  if  even 
in  other  countries  I  hear  the  same  appreciation  of  his 
works,  and  not  a  single  contradiction  ;  it  is  that  his  peculiar 
nature  and  talent  were  so  one  and  whole,  so  in  one  gush 
out  of  the  hand  of  the  Creator,  that  he  won  authority  and 
faith  by  the  force  of  those  primeval  laws  to  which  we 
bow  by  a  divine  necessity  as  we  recognize  in  them  the  mark 
of  divine  truth. 

God  had  given  to  our  friend  to  understand  the  true 
beauty ;  Christianity  had  elevated  the  moral  standard  of 
his  mind  ;  the  spirit  of  the  New  World  had  breathed  on  him 
its  enlarging  influence  ;  and  so  he  became  a  judge  of  beau- 
ty in  a  new  sense.  The  beauty  that  he  saw,  that  inspired 
him,  was  no  more  the  Venus  Anadyomene  of  the  heathen 
world  still  living  on  through  all  ages,  even  in  the  Christian 
one,  mingling  the  false  with  the  true  and  carrying  abomi- 
nations under  her  golden  mantle.  It  was  the  Venus  Ura- 
nia, radiant  with  the  pure  glory  of  the  Virgin,  mother  of 
divinity  on  earth.  The  beauty  that  inspired  him  was  in 
accordance  with  all  that  was  true  and  good,  nor  would  he 
ever  see  the  first  severed  from  the  two  others.  It  was  the 
beauty  at  home  in  the  Kingdom  of  Grod. 

In  Mr.  Downing's  home  on  the  Hudson  I  was  impressed 


A  LETTER  FROM  MISS  BREMER. 


with  the  chastity  in  forms  and  colors,  as  well  as  with  the 
perfect  grace  and  nobleness  even  in  the  slightest  things.  A 
soul,  a  pure  and  elevated  soul,  seemed  to  have  breathed 
through  them,  and  modelled  them  to  expressions  of  its  in- 
nermost life  and  taste.  How  earnest  was  the  home-spirit 
breathing  throughout  the  house  and  in  every  thing  there, 
and  yet  how  cheerful,  how  calm,  and  yet  how  full  of  life  ; 
how  silent  and  yet  how  suggestive,  how  full  of  noble 
teaching  ! 

When  I  saw  the  master  of  the  house  in  the  quiet  of 
his  home,  in  every  day  life,  I  ceased  to  think  of  his  art, 
but  I  began  to  admire  his  nature.  And  his  slight  words, 
his  smile,  even  his  silence,  became  to  me  as  revelations  of 
new  truths.  You  must  see  it  also,  you  must  recognize  it 
in  these  pages,  through  which  he  still  speaks  to  us  ;  you 
must  recognize  in  them  a  special  gift,  a  power  of  inspired, 
not  acquired,  kind  ;  what  is  acquired,  others  may  acquire 
also,  but  what  is  given  by  the  grace  of  God  is  the  exclu- 
sive property  of  the  favored  one. 

When  I  saw  how  my  friend  worked,  I  saw  how  it  was 
with  him.  For  he  worked  not  as  the  workman  does  ;  he 
worked  as  the  lilies  in  the  field,  which  neither  toil  nor  spin, 
but  unconsciously,  smilingly,  work  out  their  glorious  robes 
and  breathe  forth  their  perfumes. 

To  me  it  is  a  labor  to  write  a  letter,  especially  on  busi- 
ness ;  he  discharged  every  day,  ten  or  twelve  letters,  as 
easily  as  the  wind  carries  flower-seeds  on  its  wings  over  the 
land. 

He  never  spoke  of  business — of  having  much  to  do ; 
he  never  seemed  to  have  much  to  do.  With  a  careless 
ease  and  grace,  belonging  naturally  to  him,  he  did  many 
things  as  if  they  were  nothing,  and  had  plenty  of  leisure 
slnd  pleasantness  for  his  friends.    He  seemed  quietly  and 


Ixvi 


A  LETTER  FROM  MISS  BREMER. 


joyfully,  without  any  effort,  to  breathe  forth  the  life  and 
light  given  him.  It  was  his  nature.  In  a  flower-pot  ar- 
ranged by  his  hand,  there  was  a  silent  lecture  on  true  taste, 
applicable  to  all  objects  and  arrangements  in  life.  His 
slight  and  delicately  formed  hand,  "  la  main  ame,"  as  Vi- 
comte  d'Agincourt  would  have  named  it,  could  not  touch 
things  to  arrange  them  without  giving  them  a  soul  of 
beauty. 

Though  commonly  silent  and  retired,  there  was  in  his 
very  presence  something  that  made  you  feel  a  secret  influ- 
ence, a  secret  speaking,  in  appreciation  or  in  criticism — 
that  made  you  feel  that  the  Judge  was  there  ;  yea,  though 
kind  and  benevolent,  still  the  Judge,  severe  to  the  thing, 
the  expression,  though  indulgent  to  the  individual.  Often 
when  travelling  with  him  on  his  beloved  Hudson,  and  in 
deep  silence  sitting  by  his  side,  a  glance  of  his  eye,  a  smile, 
half  melancholy,  half  arch,  would  direct  my  looks  to  some 
curious  things  passing,  or  some  words  would  break  the  si- 
lence, slightly  spoken,  without  accent,  yet  with  meaning 
and  power  enough  never  to  be  forgotten.  His  appre- 
ciation of  things  always  touched  the  characteristic  points. 
He  could  not  help  it,  it  was  his  nature. 

And  so,  while  I  became  impressed  with  that  nature,  as 
a  peculiar  finished  work  of  God,  and  the  true  spirit  and 
aim  of  the'  refinements  and  graces  of  civilized  life  became 
through  him  more  clear  to  me,  I  felt  a  very  great  joy  to 
see  that  the  New  World — the  world  of  my  hopes — had  in 
him  a  leading  mind,  through  which  its  realm  of  beauty 
might  rise  out  of  the  old  heathenish  chaos  and  glittering 
falsities,  to  the  pure  region  where  beauty  is  connected  with 
what  is  chaste,  and  noble,  and  dignified  in  every  form  and 
application. 

A  new  conceptbn  of  beauty  and  refinement,  in  all 


A  LETTER  FROM  MISS  BREMER. 


realms  of  life,  belongs  to  the  New  World,  the  new  home  of 
the  people  of  peoples,  and  it  was  given  through  A.  J. 
Downing. 

I  am  not  sure  of  being  right  in  my  observation,  but  it 
seemed  to  me  that  in  the  course  of  no  long  time,  the  mind 
of  my  friend  had  undergone  a  change  in  some  views  that  to 
me  seem  of  importance.  When  I  knew  him  at  first  he 
seemed  to  me  a  little  too  exclusive,  a  little  aristocratic,  as 
I  even  told  him,  and  used  to  taunt  him  with,  half  in  earn- 
est, half  in  play — and  we  had  about  that  theme  some  skir- 
mishings, just  good  to  stir  up  a  fresh  breeze  over  the  smooth 
waters  of  daily  life  and  intercourse.  I  thought  that  he 
still  wanted  a  baptizing  of  a  more  Christian,  republican 
spirit.  Later  I  thought  the  baptizing  had  come,  gentle 
and  pure  as  heavenly  dew. 

And  before  my  leaving  America  I  enjoyed  to  see  the 
soul  of  my  friend  rise,  expand,  and  become  more  and  more 
enlarged  and  universal.  It  could  not  be  otherwise,  a  soul 
so  gifted  must  scatter  its  divine  gifts  as  the  sun  its  rays, 
and  the  flower  its  seeds,  over  the  whole  land,  for  the  whole 
people,  for  one  and  for  all.  The  good  and  gifted  man  would 
not  else  be  a  true  republican.  It  was  with  heartfelt  delight 
that  I,  on  my  last  visit  to  the  home  of  my  friend,  did  read 
in  the  August  number  of  the  Horticulturist  these  words 
in  a  leading  article  by  him,  on  the  New- York  Park. 

"  Social  doubters,  who  intrench  themselves  in  the  cit- 
adel of  exclusiveness  in  republican  America,  mistake  our 
people  and  its  destiny.  If  we  would  but  have  listened  to 
them,  our  magnificent  river  and  lake  steamers,  those  real 
palaces  of  the  million,  would  have  no  velvet  couches,  no 
splendid  mirrors,  no  luxurious  carpets  ;  such  costly  and 
rare  appliances  of  civilization,  they  would  have  told  us, 
could  only  be  rightly  used  by  the  privileged  families  of 


lxviii 


A  LETTER  FROM  MISS  BREMER. 


wealth,  and  would  be  trampled  upon  and  utterly  rained 
by  the  democracy  of  the  country,  who  travel  one  hundred 
miles  for  half  a  dollar.  And  yet  these  our  floating  palaces, 
and  our  monster  hotels,  with  their  purple  and  fine  linen, 
are  they  not  respected  by  the  majority  who  use  them  as 
truly  as  other  palaces  by  their  rightful  sovereigns  ?  Alas, 
for  the  faithlessness  of  the  few  who  possess,  regarding  the 
capacity  for  culture  of  the  many  who  are  wanting. 

"Even  upon  the  lower  platform  of  liberty  and  education 
that  the  masses  stand  in  Europe,  we  see  the  elevating  influ- 
ences of  a  wide  popular  enjoyment  of  galleries  of  art,  pub- 
lic libraries,  parks  and  gardens,  which  have  raised  the  peo- 
ple in  social  civilization  and  social  culture,  to  a  far  higher 
level  than  we  have  yet  attained  in  republican  America. 
And  yet  this  broad  ground  of  popular  refinement  must  be 
taken  in  republican  America,  for  it  belongs  of  right  more 
truly  here  than  elsewhere.  It  is  republican  in  its  very  idea 
and  tendency.  It  takes  up  popular  education  where  the 
common  school  and  ballot-box  leave  it,  and  raises  up  the 
working  man  to  the  same  level  of  enjoyment  with  the  man 
of  leisure  and  accomplishment.  The  higher  social  and 
artistic  elements  of  every  man's  nature  lie  dormant  within 
him,  and  every  laborer  is  a  possible  gentleman  ;  not  by  the 
possession  of  money  or  fine  clothes,  but  through  the  refin- 
ing influence  of  intelligent  and  moral  culture.  Open  wide 
therefore  the  doors  of  your  libraries  and  picture-galleries, 
all  ye  true  republicans  !  Build  halls  where  knowledge  shall 
be  freely  diffused  among  men,  and  not  shut  up  within  the 
narrow  walls  of  narrower  institutions.  Plant  spacious  parks 
in  your  cities,  and  unloose  their  gates  as  wide  as  the  gates 
of  the  morning,  to  the  whole  people.  As  there  are  no  dark 
places  at  noonday,  so  education  and  culture — the  true  sun- 
shine of  the  soul — will  banish  the  plague-spots  of  democ- 


A  LETTER  FROM  MISS  BREMErt.  kfo 

racy  ;  and  the  dread  of  the  ignorant  exclusive  who  haa 
no  faith  in  the  refinement  of  a  republic,  will  stand  abashed 
in  the  next  century,  before  a  whole  people  whose  system  of 
voluntary  education  embraces  (combined  with  perfect  indi- 
vidual freedom)  not  only  common  schools  and  rudimentary 
knowledge,  but  common  enjoyments  for  all  classes  in  the 
higher  realms  of  art,  letters,  science,  social  recreations  and 
enjoyments.  Were  our  legislators  wise  enough  to  under- 
stand to-day  the  destinies  of  the  New  World,  the  gentility 
of  Sir  Philip  Sidney  made  universal,  would  be  not  half  so 
much  a  miracle  fifty  years  hence  in  America,  as  the  idea 
of  a  whole  nation  of  laboring  men  reading  and  writing  was, 
in  his  day,  in  England." 

In  one  of  my  latest  conversations  with  my  friend,  as 
he  followed  me  down  to  the  sea-shore,  he  spoke  with  great 
satisfaction  of  Miss  Cooper's  work,  "  Kural  Hours,"  just 
published,  and  expressed  again  a  hope  I  had  heard  him 
express  more  than  once,  that  the  taste  for  rural  science 
and  occupations  would  more  and  more  be  cultivated  by 
the  women  of  America.  It  was  indeed  a  thing  for  which 
I  felt  most  grateful,  and  that  marked  my  friend  as  a  true 
American  man,  namely,  the  interest  he  took  in  the  eleva- 
tion of  woman's  culture  and  social  influence. 

His  was  a  mind  alive  to  every  thing  good  and  beautiful 
and  true,  in  every  department  of  life,  and  he  would  fain 
have  made  them  all,  and  every  species  of  excellence,  adorn 
his  native  country. 

Blessed  be  his  words  and  works,  on  the  soil  of  the  New 
World.  As  he  was  to  his  stranger  friend,  so  may  he  be  to 
millions  yet  to  come  in  his  land,  a  giver  of  Hesperian  fruits, 
a  sure  guide  through  the  wilderness  ! 


1XX  A  LETTER  FROM  MISS  BREMER. 

When  I  was  in  Cuba,  I  remember  being  strongly 
impressed  with  a  beauty  of  nature  and  existence,  of 
which  I  hitherto  had  formed  no  idea,  and  that  enlarged 
my  conceptions  of  the  realms  of  nature  as  well  as  of  art. 
I  remember  writing  of  it  to  Mr.  Downing,  saying  (if  not 
exactly  in  the  same  words,  at  least  to  the  same  pur- 
port) : 

"You  must  come  here,  my  brother,  you  must  see  these 
trees  and  flowers,  these  curves  and  colors,  and  take  into 
your  soul  the  image  of  this  earthly  paradise,  while  you  are 
still  on  earth ;  and  then,  when  God  shall  call  you  to  that 
other  world,  to  be  there  a  gardener  of  His  own,  and  you 
will  have  a  star  of  your  own  to  plant  and  perfect — as  of 
course  you  will  have — then  you  will  mingle  the  palms  and 
bamboo  groves  of  Cuba  with  your  own  American  oaks  and 
elms,  and  taking  models  out  of  the  beautiful  objects  of  all 
nature  and  all  climates,  you  will  build  houses  and  temples 
of  which  even  t  The  Seven  Lamps  of  Architecture '  give 
but  distant  ideas.  You  will  build  a  cathedral,  where 
every  plant  and  every  creature  will  be  as  a  link  rising 
upwards,  joining  in  one  harmonious  Apocalypse  revealing 
the  glory  of  the  Creator." 

And  now,  when  the  call  has  come,  and  my  friend  is 
taken  away,  and  much  of  the  charm  of  this  world  is  taken 
from  me  with  him,  I  solace  my  fancy  with  the  vision  I  thus 
anticipated.  I  see  my  friend  working  in  some  more  perfect 
world,  out  of  more  perfect  matter,  the  ideas  of  beauty  and 
perfection  which  were  life  of  his  life,  so  to  make  it  a  fit 
abode  for  pure  and  heavenly  spirits. 

Why  should  it  not  be  so  ?  I  think  it  must  be  so,  as 
God's  gifts  are  of  immortal  cost  as  well  as  the  individual 
spirit  to  whom  they  were  given.  Is  not  all  that  is  beauti- 
ful in  nature,  true  and  charming  in  art,  based  upon  laws 


A  LETTER  FROM  MISS  BREMER.  bad 

and  affinities  as  eternal  as  the  Spirit  which  recognizes 
them  ?  Are  these  laws  not  manifested  through  the 
whole  universe,  from  planet  to  planet,  from  sun  to 
sun  ? 

Verily,  the  immortal  Spirit  will  ever  reproduce  its  in- 
ward world,  even  if  the  scene  of  action  is  changed,  and 
the  stuff  for  working  is  changed.  Every  man  will,  as  it 
was  said  by  the  prophet  of  old,  "  awake  in  his  own  part, 
when  the  days  (of  sublunary  life)  will  be  ended  ! " 

I  know  that  in  my  final  hopes  beyond  this  world,  I 
shall  look  forward  in  prayer  and  hope,  to  a  home  among 
trees  and  flowers  planted  by  the  hand  of  my  friend,  there 
to  see  him  again  and  with  him  to  explore  a  new  world — 
with  him  to  adore  ! 

FREDERIKA  BREMER. 


« 


HORTICULTURE. 


HORTICULTURE. 


L 

INTRODUCTORY. 

July,  1846. 

BRIGHT  and  beautiful  June!  Embroidered  with  clusters  of 
odorous  roses,  and  laden  with  ruddy  cherries  and  strawberries ; 
rich  with  the  freshness  of  spring,  and  the  luxuriance  of  summer, — 
leafy  June !  If  any  one's  heart  does  not  swell  with  the  unwritten 
thoughts  that  belong  to  this  season,  then  is  he  only  fit  for  "treasons, 
stratagems  and  spoils."  He  does  not  practically  believe  that  "  God 
made  the  country? 

Flora  and  Pomona,  from  amid  the  blossoming  gardens  and 
orchards  of  June,  smile  graciously  as  we  write  these  few  intro- 
ductory words  to  their  circle  of  devotees.  Happy  are  we  to  know 
that  it  is  not  to  us  a  new  or  strange  circle,  but  to  feel  that  large 
numbers  of  our  readers  are  already  congenial  and  familiar  spirits. 
Angry  volumes  of  politics  have  we  written  none;  but  peaceful 
books,  humbly  aiming  to  weave  something  more  into  the  fair  gar- 
land of  the  beautiful  and  useful,  that  encircles  this  excellent  old 
Earth. 

To  the  thousands,  who  have  kindly  made  our  rural  volumes  part 
of  their  household  library,  we  offer  this  new  production,  which  be- 
gins to  unfold  itself  now,  in  the  midsummer  of  the  year.  In  its 
pages,  from  month  to  month,  we  shall  give  them  a  collection  of  all 


4 


HORTICULTURE. 


that  can  most  interest  those  whose  feelings  are  firmly  rooted  in  the 
soil,  and  its  kindred  avocations.  The  garden  and  the  orchard ;  the 
hot-ho\Tse  and  the  conservatory ;  the  park  and  the  pleasure-grounds ; 
all,  if  we  can  read  th^n  \  j  ightly,  shall  be  made  to  preach  useful 
lessons  in  our  pages-.  All  fruitful  and  luxuriant  grounds  shall  we 
revel  in  a&g  delight  fcd  b  on  or.  "Blooming  trees,  and  fruitful  vines, 
we  shall  open  our  lips  to  praise.  And  if  nature  has  been  over-par- 
tial to  any  one  part  of  the  globe,  either  in  good  gardens,  fair  flowers, 
or  good  fruits, — if  she  has  any  where  lavished  secret  vegetable  trea- 
sures that  our  cultivators  have  not  yet  made  prizes  of,  we  promise 
oui  readers  to  watch  closely,  and  to  give  a  faithful  account  of  them. 
Skilful  cultivators  promise  to  make  these  sheets  the  repository  of 
their  knowledge.  Sound  practice,  and  ingenious  theory  will  be  con- 
tinually developed  and  illustrated.  The  humblest  cottage  kitchen 
garden,  as  well  as  the  most  extended  pleasure-grounds,  will  occupy 
the  attention  of  the  pens  in  our  service.  Beautiful  flowers  shall 
picture  themselves  in  our  columns,  till  even  our  sterner  utilitarians 
shall  be  tempted  to  admire  and  cultivate  them ;  and  the  honeyed, 
juicy  gifts  of  Pomona  shall  be  treated  of  till  every  one  who  reads 
shall  discover  that  the  most  delicious  products  of  our  soil  are  no 
longer  forbidden  fruits. 

Fewer,  perhaps,  are  there,  who  have  watched  as  closely  as  our- 
selves the  zeal  and  enthusiasm  which  the  last  five  years  have 
begotten  in  American  Horticulture.  Every  where,  on  both  sides 
of  the  Alleghanies,  are  our  friends  rapidly  turning  the  fertile  soil  into 
luxuriant  gardens,  and  crying  out  loudly  for  more  light  and  more 
knowledge.  Already  do  the  readers  of  rural  works  in  the  United 
States  number  more  than  in  any  cisatlantic  country,  except  garden- 
ing England.  Already  do  our  orchards  cover  more  acres  than 
those  of  any  other  country.  Already  are  the  banks  of  the  Ohio 
becoming  famous  for  their  delicate  wines.  Already  are  the  suburbs 
of  our  cities,  and  the  banks  of  our  broad  and  picturesque  rivers, 
studded  with  the  tasteful  villa  and  cottage,  where  a  charming  taste 
in  ornamental  gardening  is  rapidly  developing  itself.  The  patient 
toil  of  the  pioneer  and  settler  has  no  sooner  fairly  ceased,  than  our 
people  begin  to  enter  with  the  same  zeal  and  spirit  into  the  refine- 
ments and  enjoyments  which  belong  to  a  country  life,  and  a  country 


INTRODUCTORY. 


5 


home.  A  fortunate  range  of  climate — lands  fertile  and  easily 
acquired,  tempt  persons  even  of  little  means  and  leisure  into  the 
delights  of  gardening.  Where  peaches  and  melons,  the  richest 
fruits  of  the  tropics,  are  raised  without  walls — where  apples  and 
pears,  the  pride  of  the  temperate  zones,  are  often  grown  with  little 
more  than  the  trouble  of  planting  them — who  would  not  be  tempted 
to  join  in  the  enthusiasm  of  the  exclamation, 

"Allons  mes  amis,  il  faut  cultiver  nos  jardins." 

Behold  us  then,  with  all  this  growing  zeal  of  our  countrymen 
for  our  beautiful  and  favorite  art,  unable  to  resist  the  temptation  of 
commencing  new  labors  in  its  behalf.  Whatever  our  own  feeble 
efforts  can  achieve,  whatever  our  more  intelligent  correspondents 
can  accomplish,  shall  be  done  to  render  worthy  this  monthly  record 
of  the  progress  of  horticulture  and  its  kindred  pursuits.  If  it  is  a 
laudable  ambition  to  "  make  two  blades  of  grass  grow  where  only 
one  grew  before,"  we  shall  hope  for  the  encouragement,  and  assistance, 
and  sympathy  of  all  those  who  would  see  our  vast  territory  made 
smiling  with  gardens,  and  rich  in  all  that  makes  one's  country 
worth  living  and  dying  for. 


II. 


HINTS  ON  FLOWER-GAEDENS. 

April,  1847. 

WE  are  once  more  unlocked  from  the  chilling  embraces  of  the 
Ice-King !  April,  full  of  soft  airs,  balm -dropping  showers, 
and  fitful  gleams  of  sunshine,  brings  life  and  animation  to  the  mil- 
lions of  embryo  leaves  and  blossoms,  that,  quietly  folded  up  in  the 
bud,  have  slept  the  mesmeric  sleep  of  a  northern  winter— April, 
that  first  gives  us  of  the  Northern  States  our  proper  spring  flowers, 
which  seem  to  succeed  almost  by  magic  to  the  barrenness  of  the 
month  gone  by.  A  few  pale  snowdrops,  sun-bright  crocuses,  and 
timidly  blushing  mezereums,  have  already  gladdened  us,  like  the 
few  faint  bars  of  golden  and  ruddy  light  that  usher  in  the  full  radi 
ance  of  sunrise  ;  but  April  scatters  in  her  train  as  she  goes  out,  the 
first  richness  and  beauty  that  really  belong  to  a  temperate  spring. 
Hyacinths,  and  daffodils,  and  violets,  bespread  her  lap  and  fill  the 
air  with  fragrance,  and  the  husbandman  beholds  with  joy  his  orchards 
gay  with  the  thousand  blossoms — beautiful  harbingers  of  luscious 
and  abundant  crops. 

All  this  resurrection  of  sweetness  and  beauty,  inspires  us  with 
a  desire  to  look  into  the  Flower-Garden,  and  to  say  a  few  words 
about  it  and  the  flowers  themselves.  We  trust  there  are  none  of 
"  our  parish,"  who,  though  they  may  not  make  flower-gardens,  can 
turn  away  with  impatient  or  unsympathizing  hearts  from  flowers 
themselves.  If  there  are  such,  we  must,  at  the  very  threshhold  of 
the  matter,  borrow  a  homily  for  them  from  that  pure  and  eloquent 
preacher,  Mary  Howitt : 


HINTS  ON  FLOWER-GARDENS. 


7 


"  God  might  have  made  the  earth  bring  forth 
Enough  for  great  and  small 
The  oak  tree  and  the  cedar  tree, 
"Without  a  flower  at  all. 

"  Our  outward  life  requires  them  not — 
Then  wherefore  had  they  birth  ? 
To  minister  delight  to  man, 
To  beautify  the  earth. 

"To  comfort  man,  to  whisper  hope 
Whene'er  his  faith  is  dim  •  . 
For  who  so  careth  for  the  flowers, 
Will  much  more  care  for  him !  " 

Now,  there  are  many  genuine  lovers  of  flowers  who  have  at- 
tempted to  make  flower-gardens — in  the  simplicity  of  their  hearts 
believing  it  to  be  the  easiest  thing  in  the  world  to  arrange  so  many 
beautiful  annuals  and  perennials  into  "  a  living  knot  of  wonders  " — 
who  have  quite  failed  in  realizing  all  that  they  conceived  of  and 
fairly  expected  when  they  first  set  about  it.  It  is  easy  enough  to 
draw  upon  paper  a  pleasing  plan  of  a  flower-garden,  whether  in  the 
geometric,  or  the  natural,  or  the  "  gardenesque"  style,  that  shall 
satisfy  the  eye  of  the  beholder.  But  it  is  far  more  difficult  to  plant 
and  arrange  a  garden  of  this  kind  in  such  a  way  as  to  afford  a 
constant  succession  of  beauty,  both  in  blossom  and  leaf.  Indeed, 
among  the  hundreds  of  avowed  flower-gardens  which  we  have 
seen  in  different  parts  of  the  country,  public  and  private,  we  cannot 
name  half-a-dozen  which  are  in  any  considerable  degree  satisfactory. 

The  two  leading  faults  in  all  our  flower-gardens,  are  the  want 
of  proper  selection  in  the  plants  themselves,  and  a  faulty  arrange- 
ment, by  which  as  much  surface  of  bare  soil  meets  the  eye  as  is 
clothed  with  verdure  and  blossoms. 

Regarding  the  first  effect,  it  seems  to  us  that  the  entire  beauty 
of  a  flower-garden  almost  depends  upon  it.  However  elegant  or 
striking  may  be  the  design  of  a  garden,  that  design  is  made  poor 
or  valueless,  when  it  is  badly  planted  so  as  to  conceal  its  merits,  or 
filled  with  a  selection  of  unsuitable  plants,  which,  from  their  coarse 
or  ragged  habit  of  growth,  or  their  remaining  in  bloom  but  a  short 


8 


HORTICULTURE. 


time,  give  the  whole  a  confused  and  meagre  effect.  A  flower-gar- 
den, deserving  the  name,  should,  if  possible,  be  as  rich  as  a  piece 
of  embroidery,  during  the  whole  summer  and  autumn.  In  a  botan- 
ical garden,  or  the  collection  of  a  curious  amateur,  one  expects  to 
see  variety  of  Species,  plants  of  all  known  forms,  at  the  expense  of 
every  thing  else.  But  in  a  flower-garden,  properly  so  called,  the 
whole  object  of  which  is  to  afford  a  continual  display  of  beautiful 
colors  and  delicious  odors,  we  conceive  that  every  thing  should  be 
rejected  (or  only  most  sparingly  introduced),  which  does  not  com- 
bine almost  perpetual  blooming,  with  neat  and  agreeable  habit  of 
growth. 

The  passion  for  novelty  and  variety  among  the  lovers  of  flowers, 
is  as  great  as  in  any  other  enthusiasts.  But  as  some  of  the  greatest 
of  the  old  painters  are  said  to  owe  the  success  of  their  master- 
pieces to  the  few  colors  they  employed,  so  we  are  confident  the  most 
beautiful  flower-gardens  are  those  where  but  few  species  are  intro- 
duced, and  those  only  such  as  possess  the  important  qualities  we 
have  alluded  to. 

Thus  among  flowering  shrubs,  taking  for  illustration  the  tribe 
of  Hoses,  we  would  reject,  in  our  choice  flower-garden,  nearly  all  the 
old  class  of  roses,  which  are  in  bloom  for  a  few  days  and  but  once 
a  year,  and  exhibit  during  the  rest  of  the  season,  for  the  most  part, 
meagre  stems  and  dingy  foliage.  We  would  supply  their  place  by 
Bourbons,  Perpetuals,  Bengals,  etc.,  roses  which  offer  an  abundance 
of  blossoms  and  fine  fresh  foliage  during  the  whole  growing  season. 
Among  annuals,  we  would  reject  every  thing  short-lived,  and  intro- 
duce only  those  like  the  Portulaccas,  Verbenas,  Petunias,  Mignon- 
ette, Phlox  Drummondii,  and  the  like,  which  are  always  in  bloom, 
and  fresh  and  pretty  in  habit.* 

After  this  we  would  add  to  the  effect  of  our  selection  of  perpet- 
ual blooming  plants,  by  abandoning  altogether  the  old  method  of 
intermingling  species  and  varieties  of  all  colors  and  habits  of  growth, 

*  Some  of  the  most  beautiful  of  the  perpetual  blooming  plants  for  the 
flower-garden,  are  the  Salvias,  Bouvardias,  Scarlet  Geraniums,  <fcc,  properly 
green-house  plants,  and  requiring  protection  in  a  pit  or  warm  cellar  in  win 
ter.  "  Bedded  out "  in  May,  they  form  rich  flowing  masses  till  the  frosts  of 
autumn. 


HINTS  ON  FLOWER-GARDENS. 


9 


and  substitute  for  it  the  opposite  mode  of  grouping  or  massing  colors 
and  particular  species  of  plants.  Masses  of  crimson  and  white,  of 
yellow  and  purple,  and  the  other  colors  and  shades,  brought  boldly 
into  contrast,  or  disposed  so  as  to  form  an  agreeable  harmony,  will 
attract  the  eye,  and  make  a  much  more  forcible  and  delightful  im- 
pression, than  can  ever  be  produced  by  a  confused  mixture  of  shades 
and  colors,  nowhere  distinct  enough  to  give  any  decided  effect  to 
the  whole.  The  effect  of  thus  collecting  masses  of  colors  in  a  flower- 
garden  in  this  way,  is  to  give  it  what  the  painters  call  breadth  of 
effect,  which  in  the  other  mode  is  entirely  frittered  away  and  de- 
stroyed. 

This  arranging  plants  in  patches  or  masses,  each  composed  of 
the  same  species,  also  contributes  to  do  away  in  a  great  degree  with 
the  second  fault  which  we  have  alluded  to  as  a  grievous  one  in 
most  of  our  flower-gardens — that  of  the  exhibition  of  bare  surface 
of  soil — parts  of  beds  not  covered  by  foliage  and  flowers. 

In  a  hot  climate,  like  that  of  our  summers,  nothing  is  more  un- 
pleasing  to  the  eyes  or  more  destructive  to  that  expression  of  soft- 
ness, verdure,  and  gayety,  that  should  exist  in  the  flower-garden,  than 
to  behold  the  surface  of  the  soil  in  any  of  the  beds  or  parterres  un- 
clothed with  plants.  The  dryness  and  parched  appearance  of  such 
portions  goes  far  to  impair  whatever  air  of  freshness  and  beauty 
may  be  imparted  by  the  flowers  themselves.  Now  whenever  beds 
are  planted  with  a  heterogeneous  mixture  of  plants,  tall  and  short, 
spreading  and  straggling,  it  is  nearly  impossible  that  considerable 
parts  of  the  surface  of  the  soil  should  not  be  visible.  On  the  con- 
trary, where  species  and  varieties  of  plants,  chosen  for  their  excel- 
lent habits  of  growth  and  flowering,  are  planted  in  masses,  almost 
every  part  of  the  surface  of  the  beds  may  be  hidden  from  the  eye, 
which  we  consider  almost  a  sine  qua  non  in  all  good  flower-gardens. 

Following  out  this  principle — on  the  whole  perhaps  the  most 
important  in  all  flower-gardens  in  this  country — that  there 
should,  if  possible,  be  no  bare  surface  soil  visible,  our  own  taste 
leads  us  to  prefer  the  modern  English  style  of  laying  out  flower- 
gardens  upon  a  groundwork  of  grass  or  turf,  kept  scrupulously 
short.  Its  advantage  over  a  flower-garden  composed  only  of  beds 
with  a  narrow  edging  and  gravel  walks,  consists  in  the  greater  soft- 


10 


HORTICULTURE. 


ness,  freshness  and  verdure  of  the  green  turf,  which  serves  as  a  set- 
ting to  the  flower  beds,  and  heightens  the  brilliancy  of  the  flowers 
themselves.  Still,  both  these  modes  have  their  merits,  and  each  is 
best  adapted  to  certain  situations,  and  harmonizes  best  with  its  ap- 
propriate scenery. 

There  are  two  other  defects  in  many  of  our  flower-gardens, 
easily  remedied,  and  about  which  we  must  say  a  word  or  two  in 
passing.  • 

One  of  these  is  the  common  practice,  brought  over  here  by 
gardeners  from  England,  of  forming  raised  convex  beds  for  flowering 
plants.  This  is  a  very  unmeaning  and  injurious  practice  in  this 
country,  as  a  moment's  reference  to  the  philosophy  of  the  thing  will 
convince  any  one.  In  a  damp  climate,  like  that  of.  England,  a  bed 
with  a  high  convex  surface,  by  throwing  off  the  superfluous  water, 
keeps  the  plants  from  suffering  by  excess  of  wet,  and  the  form 
is  an  excellent  one.  In  this  country,  where  most  frequently  our 
flower-gardens  fail  from  drouth,  what  sound  reason  can  be  given 
for  forming  the  beds  with  a  raised  and  rounded  surface  of  six  inches 
in  every  three  feet,  so  as  to  throw  off  foui-fifths  of  every  shower  ? 
The  true  mode,  as  a  little  reflection  and  experience  will  convince 
any  one,  is  to  form  the  surface  of  the  bed  nearly  level,  so  that  it 
may  retain  its  due  proportion  of  the  rains  that  fall. 

Next  to  this  is  the  defect  of  not  keeping  the  walks  in  flower- 
gardens  full  of  gravel.  In  many  instances  that  we  could  name, 
the  level  of  the  gravel  in  the  walk  is  six  inches  below  that  of  the 
adjoining  bed  or  border  of  turf.  This  gives  a  harsh  and  ditch-like 
character  to  the  walks,  quite  at  variance  with  the  smoothness  and 
perfection  of  details  which  ought  .especially  to  characterize  so  ele- 
gant a  portion  of  the  grounds  as  this  in  question.  "  Keep  the  walks 
brimful  of  gravel,"  was  one  of  the  maxims  most  strongly  insisted 
on  by  the  late  Mr.  Loudon,  and  one  to  which  we  fully  subscribe. 

We  insert  here  a  copy  of  the  plan  of  the  celebrated  flower-gar- 
den of  Baron  Von  Hugel,  near  Vienna.  This  gentleman  is  one  of 
the  most  enthusiastic  devotees  to  Horticulture  in  Germany.  In  the 
Algemeine  Garten  Zeitung,  a  detailed  account  is  given,  by  the  Se- 
cretary of  the  Imperial  Horticultural  Society  of  Vienna,  of  the  resi- 
dence and  grounds  of  the  Baron,  from  which  we  gather  that  they 


HINTS  ON  FLOWER-GARDENS. 


11 


.ire  not  surpassed  in  the  richness  and  variety  of  their  botanical  trea- 
sures by  any  private  collection  on  the  Continent.  "A  forest  of 
Camellias  almost  makes  one  believe  that  he  is  in  Japan."  Some 
of  these  are  22  feet  high,  and  altogether  the  collection  numbers 
1000  varieties.  The  hot-house  devoted  to  orchids,  or  air  plants, 
contains  200  varieties,  and  the  various  green-houses  include  equally 
rich  collections  of  the  exotics  of  various  climates.  Regarding  the 
Baron's  flower-garden  itself,  we  quote  the  words  of  M.  Peinter. 

"  But  still  another  most  delightful  scene  is  reserved,  -which  is  a 
mosaic  picture  of  flowers,  a  so-called  Rococo  garden.  We  have  to 
thank  Baron  Von  Hugel  for  giving  the  first  example  of  a  style,  since 
pretty  largely  copied,  both  here  and  in  the  adjacent  country.  A 
garden,  laid  out  in  this  manner,  demands  much  cleverness  and  skill 
in  the  gardener,  both  in  the  choice  and  the  arrangement  of  the 
flowers.  He  must  also  take  care  that,  during  the  whole  summer, 
there  are  no  portions  destitute  of  flowering  plants.  It  is  but  justice 
to  the  Baron's  head  gardener,  to  affirm  that  he  has  completely  ac- 
complished this  task,  and  has  been  entirely  successful  in  carrying 
out  the  design  or  purpose  of  this  garden.  The  connoisseur  does  not 
indeed  see  the  usual  collection  of  ornamental  plants  in  this  sea  of 
flowers,  but  a  great  many  varieties ;  and,  in  short,  here,  as  every- 
where else,  the  aesthetic  taste  of  the  Baron  predominates.  Beau- 
tiful is  this  garden  within  a  garden,  and  hence  it  has  become  the 
model  garden  of  Austria.  Around  it  the  most  charming  landscape 
opens  to  the  view,  gently  swelling  hills,  interspersed  with  pretty 
villages,  gardens  and  grounds." 

In  the  plan  of  the  garden,  a  and  5  are  masses  of  shrubs  ;  c, 
circular  beds,  separated  by  a  border  or  belt  of  turf,  e,  from  the  ser- 
pentine bed,  d.  The  whole  of  this  running  pattern  is  surrounded 
by  a  border  of  turf,/;  g  and  h  are  gravel  walks  ;  i,  beds,  with 
pedestal  and  statue  in  the  centre ;  k,  small  oval  beds,  separated  from 
the  bed,  I,  by  a  border  of  turf ;  m,  w,  o,  p,  irregular  or  arabesque 
beds,  set  in  turf. 

As  a  good  deal  of  the  interest  of  such  a  flower-garden  as  this, 
depends  on  the  plan  itself,  it  is  evident  that  the  beds  should  be 
filled  with  groups  or  masses,  composed  mostly  of  low  growing 
flowers,  as  tall  ones  would  interfere  with,  or  break  up  its  effect  as 


12 


HORTICULTURE. 


a  whole.  Mr.  Loudon,  in  some  criticisms  on  this  garden,  in  the 
Gardener's  Magazine,  says,  that  the  running  chain  pattern  of  beds, 
which  forms  the  outer  border  to  the  design,  was  originated  in  Eng- 
land, by  the  Duchess  of  Bedford,  about  the  year  1800.  "It  is," 
he  remarks,  "  capable  of  producing  a  very  brilliant  effect,  by  plant- 
ing the  circular  beds,  c,  with  bright  colors,  each  alternating  with 
white.  For  example,  beginning  at  c,  and  proceeding  to  the  right, 
we  might  have  dark  red,  white,  blue,  white,  yellow,  white,  scarlet, 
white,  purple,  white,  and  so  on.  The  interlacing  beds,  d,  might  be 
planted  on  exactly  the  same  principle,  but  omitting  white.  Pro- 
ceeding to  the  right  from  the  bed,  d,  which  may  be  yellow,  the  next 
may  be  crimson,  the  next  purple,  the  next  orange,  and  so  on." 

This  plan  is  by  no  means  faultless,  yet  as  it  is  admirably  planted 
with  ever-blooming  flowers,  and  kept  in  the  highest  order,  it  is  said 
to  attract  universal  admiration,  and  is  worthy  of  the  examination  of 
our  floral  friends.  We  should  imagine  it  much  inferior,  in  design 
and  general  effect,  to  the  very  beautiful  new  flower-garden  at 
Montgomery  Place,  the  seat  of  Mrs.  Edward  Livingston,  on  the 
Hudson,  which  is  about  double  its  size,  and  is  undoubtedly  one  of 
the  most  beautiful  and  most  tastefully  managed  examples  of  a  flower- 
garden  in  America. 


III. 


INFLUENCE  OF  HORTICULTURE. 

July,  1847. 

fPHE  multiplication  of  Horticultural  Societies  is  taking  place  so 
J-  rapidly  of  late,  in  various  parts  of  the  country,  as  to  lead  one 
to  reflect  somewhat  on  their  influence,  and  that  of  the  art  they 
foster,  upon  the  character  of  our  people. 

Most  persons,  no  doubt,  look  upon  them  as  performing  a  work 
of  some  usefulness  and  elegance,  by  promoting  the  culture  of  fruits 
and  flowers,  and  introducing  to  all  parts  of  the  country  the  finer 
species  of  vegetable  productions.  In  other  words,  they  are  thought 
to  add  very  considerably  to  the  amount  of  physical  gratifications 
which  every  American  citizen  endeavors,  and  has  a  right  to  endea- 
vor, to  assemble  around  him. 

Granting  all  the  foregoing,  we  are  inclined  to  claim  also,  for 
horticultural  pursuits,  a  political  and  moral  influence  vastly  more 
significant  and  important  than  the  mere  gratification  of  the  senses. 
We  think,  then,  in  a  few  words,  that  Horticulture  and  its  kindred 
arts,  tend  strongly  to  fix  the  habits,  and  elevate  the  character,  of  our 
whole  rural  population. 

One  does  not  need  to  be  much  of  a  philosopher  to  remark  that  one 
of  the  most  striking  of  our  national  traits,  is  the  spirit  of  unrest. 
It  is  the  grand  energetic  element  which  leads  us  to  clear  vast  forests, 
and  settle  new  States,  with  a  rapidity  unparalleled  in  the  world's 
history;  the  spirit,  possessed  with  which,  our  yet  comparatively 
scanty  people  do  not  find  elbow-room  enough  in  a  territory  already 
in  their  possession,  and  vast  enough  to  hold  the  greatest  of  ancient 


14 


HORTICULTURE. 


empires ;  which  drives  the  emigrant's  wagon  across  vast  sandy  de- 
serts to  California,  and  over  Rocky  Mountains  to  Oregon  and  the 
Pacific ;  which  huilds  up  a  great  State  like  Ohio  in  30  years,  so 
populous,  civilized  and  productive,  that  the  bare  recital  of  its  growth 
sounds  like  a  genuine  miracle  to  European  ears  ;  and  which  over- 
runs and  takes  possession  of  a  whole  empire,  like  that  of  Mexico, 
while  the  cabinets  of  old  monarchies  are  debating  whether  or  not  it 
is  necessary  to  interfere  and  restore  the  balance  of  power  in  the  new 
world  as  in  the  old. 

This  is  the  grand  and  exciting  side  of  the  picture.  Turn  it  in  an- 
other light,  and  study  it,  and  the  effect  is  by  no  means  so  agreeable 
to  the  reflective  mind.  The  spirit  of  unrest,  followed  into  the  bosom 
of  society,  makes  of  man  a  feverish  being,  in  whose  Tantalus'  cup 
repose  is  the  unattainable  drop.  Unable  to  take  root  any  where,  he 
leads,  socially  and  physically,  the  uncertain  life  of  a  tree  transplanted 
from  place  to  place,  and  shifted  to  a  different  soil  eveiy  season. 

It  has  been  shrewdly  said  that  what  qualities  we  do  not  possess, 
are  always  in  our  mouths.  Our  countrymen,  it  seems  to  us,  are 
fonder  of  no  one  Anglo-Saxon  word  than  the  term  settle.*  It  was 
the  great  object  of  our  forefathers  to  find  a  proper  spot  to  settle. 
Every  year,  large  numbers  of  our  population  from  the  older  States 
go  west  to  settle  ;  while  those  already  west, pull  up,  with  a  kind  of 
desperate  joy,  their  yet  new-set  stakes,  and  go  farther  west  to  settle 
again.  So  truly  national  is  the  word,  that  all  the  business  of  the 
country,  from  State  debts  to  the  products  of  a  "  truck  farm,"  are 
not  satisfactorily  adjusted  till  they  are  "  settled  ; "  and  no  sooner  is  a 
passenger  fairly  on  board  one  of  our  river  steamers,  than  he  is 
politely  and  emphatically  invited  by  a  sable  representative  of  its 
executive  power,  to  "call  at  the  captain's  office  and  settle  /" 

Yet,  as  a  people,  we  are  never  settled.  It  is  one  of  the  first 
points  that  strikes  a  citizen  of  the  old  world,  where  something  of 
the  dignity  of  repose,  as  well  as  the  value  of  action,  enters  into  their 
ideal  of  life.  De  Tocqueville  says,  in  speaking  of  our  national 
trait : 

*  Anglo-Saxon  sath-Uan,  from  the  verb  settan,  to  set,  to  cease  from  mo- 
tion, to  fix  a  dwelling-place,  to  repose,  etc. 


INFLUENCE  OF  HORTICULTURE. 


15 


"  At  first  sight,  there  is  something  surprising  in  this  strange  un- 
rest of  so  many  happy  men,  restless  in  the  midst  of  abundance.  The 
spectacle  itself  is,  however,  as  old  as  the  world.  The  novelty  is  to 
see  a  whole  people  furnish  an  exemplification  of  it. 

"  In  the  United  States  a  man  builds  a  house  to  spend  his  latter 
years  in,  and  sells  it  before  the  roof  is  on  ;  he  brings  a  field  into 
tillage,  and  leave  other  men  to  gather  the  crops ;  he  embraces  a 
profession,  and  gives  it  up ;  he  settles  in  a  place,  which  he  soon 
after  leaves,  in  order  to  carry  his  changeable  longings  elsewhere.  If 
his  private  affairs  leave  him  any  leisure  he  instantly  plunges  into 
the  vortex  of  politics ;  and  if  at  the  end  of  a  year  of  unremitting 
labor,  he  finds  he  has  a  few  days'  vacation,  his  eager  curiosity  whirls 
him  over  the  vast  extent  of  the  United  States,  and  he  will  travel 
fifteen  hundred  miles  in  a  few  days,  to  shake  off  his  happiness." 

Much  as  we  admire  the  energy  of  our  people,  we  value  no  less 
the  love  of  order,  the  obedience  to  law,  the  security  and  repose  of 
society,  the  love  of  home,  and  the  partiality  to  localities  endeared 
by  birth  or  association,  of  which  it  is  in  some  degree  the  antagonist. 
And  we  are  therefore  deeply  convinced  that  whatever  tends,  without 
checking  due  energy  of  character,  but  to  develope  along  with  it 
certain  virtues  that  will  keep  it  within  due  bounds,  may  be  looked 
upon  as  a  boon  to  the  nation. 

Now  the  difference  between  the  son  of  Ishmael,  who  lives  in 
tents,  and  that  man  who  has  the  strongest  attachment  to  the  home 
of  his  fathers,  is,  in  the  beginning,  one  mainly  of  outward  circum- 
stances. He  whose  sole  property  is  a  tent  and  a  camel,  whose  ties 
to  one  spot  are  no  stronger  than  the  cords  which  confine  his  habita- 
tion to  the  sandy  floor  of  the  desert,  who  can  break  up  his  encamp- 
ment at  an  hour's  notice,  and  choose  a  new  and  equally  agreeable 
site,  fifty  miles  distant,  the  next  day — such  a  person  is  very  little 
likely  to  become  much  more  strongly  attached  to  any  one  spot  of 
earth  than  another. 

The  condition  of  a  western  emigrant  is  not  greatly  dissimilar. 
That  long  covered  wagon,  which  is  the  Noah's  ark  of  his  preserva- 
tion, is  also  the  concrete  essence  of  house  and  home  to  him.  He 
emigrates,  he  "  squats,"  he  "  locates,"  but  before  he  can  be  fairly 
said  to  have  a  fixed  home,  the  spirit  of  unrest  besets  him  ;  he  sells 


16 


HORTICULTUBE. 


his  "  diggins"  to  some  less  adventurous  pioneer,  and  tackling  the 
wagon  of  the  wilderness,  migrates  once  more. 

It  must  not  be  supposed,  large  as  is  the  infusion  of  restlessness 
in  our  people  that  there  are  not  also  large  exceptions  to  the  general 
rule.  Else  there  would  never  be  growing  villages  and  prosperous 
towns.  Nay,  it  cannot  be  overlooked  by  a  careful  observer,  that 
the  tendency  "  to  settle "  is  slowly  but  gradually  on  the  increase, 
and  that  there  is,  in  all  the  older  portions  of  the  country,  growing 
evidence  that  the  Anglo-Saxon  love  of  home  is  gradually  developing 
itself  out  of  the  Anglo-American  love  of  change. 

It  is  not  difficult  to  see  how  strongly  horticulture  contributes  to 
the  development  of  local  attachments.  In  it  lies  the  most  powerful 
philtre  that  civilized  man  has  yet  found  to  charm  him  to  one  spot 
of  earth.  It  transforms  what  is  only  a  tame  meadow  and  a  bleak 
aspect,  into  an  Eden  of  interest  and  delights.  It  makes  all  the 
difference  between  "Araby  the  blest,"  and  a  pine  barren.  It  gives 
a  bit  of  soil,  too  insignificant  to  find  a  place  in  the  geography  of  the 
earth's  surface,  such  an  importance  in  the  eyes  of  its  possessor,  that 
he  finds  it  more  attractive  than  countless  acres  of  unknown  and  un- 
explored "  territory."  In  other  words,  it  contains  the  mind  and  soul 
of  the  man,  materialized  in  many  of  the  fairest  and  richest  forms  of 
nature,  so  that  he  looks  upon  it  as  tearing  himself  up,  root  and 
branch,  to  ask  him  to  move  a  mile  to  the  right  or  the  left.  Do  we 
need  to  say  mo#e,  to  prove  that  it  is  the  panacea  that  really  "  settles  " 
mankind  ? 

It  is  not,  therefore,  without  much  pleasurable  emotion,  that  we 
have  had  notice  lately  of  the  formation  of  five  new  Horticultural 
societies,  the  last  at  St.  Louis,  and  most  of  them  west  of  the  Alle- 
ghanies.  Whoever  lives  to  see  the  end  of  the  next  cycle  of  our 
race,  will  see  the  great  valleys  of  the  W est  the  garden  of  the  world  ; 
and  we  watch  with  interest  the  first  development,  in  the  midst  of 
the  busy  fermentation  of  its  active  masses,  of  that  beautiful  and  quiet 
spirit,  of  the  joint  culture  of  the  earth  and  the  heart,  that  is  destined 
to  give  a  tone  to  the  future  character  of  its  untold  millions. 

The  increased  love  of  home  and  the  garden,  in  the  older  States, 
is  a  matter  of  every -day  remark ;  and  it  is  not  a  little  curious,  that 
just  in  proportion  to  the  intelligence  and  settled  character  of  its  popu- 


INFLUENCE  OP  HORTICULTURE. 


17 


lation,  is  the  amount  of  interest  manifested  in  horticulture.  Thus, 
the  three  most  settled  of  the  original  States,  we  suppose  to  be  Massa- 
chusetts, New- York  and  Pennsylvania ;  and  in  these  States  horti- 
culture is  more  eagerly  pursued  than  in  any  others.  The  first 
named  State  has  now  seven  horticultural  societies;  the  second, 
seven ;  the  third,  three.  Following  out  the  comparison  in  the 
cities,  we  should  say  that  Boston  had  the  most  settled  population, 
Philadelphia  the  next,  and  New- York  the  least  so  of  any  city  in  the 
Union ;  and  it  is  well  known  that  the  horticultural  society  of  Boston 
is  at  this  moment  the  most  energetic  one  in  the  country,  and  that  it 
is  stimulated  by  the  interest  excited  by  societies  in  all  its  neighbor- 
ing towns.  The  Philadelphia  society  is  exceedingly  prosperous; 
while  in  New-York,  we  regret  to  say,  that  the  numerous  efforts  that 
have  been  made  to  establish  firmly  a  society  of  this  kind  have  not, 
up  to  this  time,  resulted  in  any  success  whatever.  Its  mighty  tide 
of  people  is  as  yet  too  much  possessed  with  the  spirit  of  business  and 
of  unrest."  * 

*  "The  New- York  Horticultural  Society"  was  organized  in  the  spring 
of  1852,  and  is  already  in  a  flourishing  condition. — Ed. 


2 


IV. 


A  TALK  WITH  FLORA  AND  POMONA. 

September,  1847. 

WE  beg  leave  to  inform  such  of  our  readers  as  may  be  inter- 
ested, that  we  have  lately  had  the  honor  of  a  personal  inter- 
view with  the  distinguished  deities  that  preside  over  the  garden  and 
the  orchard,  Flora  and  Pomona. 

The  time  was  a  soft  balmy  August  night ;  the  scene  was  a  leafy 
nook  in  out  own  grounds,  where,  after  the  toils  of  the  day,  we  were 
enjoying  the  dolce  far  niente  of  a  hammock,  and  wondering  at  the 
necessity  of  any  thing  fairer  or  diviner  than  rural  nature,  and  such 
moonlight  as  then  filled  the  vaulted  heaven,  bathed  the  tufted  fore- 
ground of  trees,  the  distant  purple  hills,  and 

"  Tipt  with  silver  all  the  fruit  tree  tops." 

It  was  a  scene  for  an  artist ;  yet,  as  we  do  not  write  for  the 
Court  Journal,  we  must  be  pardoned  for  any  little  omission  in  the 
costumes  or  equipages  of  the  divinities  themselves.  Indeed,  we  were' 
so  thoroughly  captivated  with  the  immortal  candor  and  freshness  of 
the  goddesses,  that  we  find  many  of  the  accessories  have  escaped  our 
memory.  Pomona's  breath,  however,  when  she  spoke,  filled  the 
air  with  the  odor  of  ripe  apricots,  and  she  held  in  her  left  hand  a 
fruit,  which  we  immediately  recognized  as  one  of  the  golden  apples 
of  the  Hesperides,  (of  which  she  knew  any  gardener  upon  earth 
would  give  his  right  hand  for  a  slip,)  and  which  in  the  course  of  our 
interview,  she  acknowledged  was  the  only  sort  in  the  mythological 
gardens  which  excels  the  Newtown  Pippin.    Her  lips  had  the  dewy 


A  TALK  WITH  FLORA  AND  POMONA. 


19 


freshness  of  the  ruddiest  strawberries  raised  by  Mr.  Longworth's 
favorite  old  Cincinnati  market  woman;  and  there  was  a  bright 
sparkle  in  her  eye,  that  assured  us  there  is  no  trouble  with  the  cur- 
culio  in  the  celestial  orchards. 

But  if  we  were  charmed  with  the  ruddy  beauty  of  Pomona,  we 
were  still  more  fascinated  by  the  ideal  freshness  and  grace  of  Flora. 
She  wore  on  her  head  a  kind  of  fanciful  crown  of  roses,  which  were 
not  only  dewy  moss  roses,  of  the  loveliest  shades  imaginable,  but  the 
colors  themselves  changed  every  moment,  as  she  turned  her  head, 
in  a  manner  that  struck  us  quite  speechless  with  admiration.  The 
goddess  observing  this,  very  graciously  remarked  that  these  roses  were 
the  true  perpetuals,  since  they  not  only  really  bloomed  always,  but 
when  plucked,  they  retained  their  brilliancy  and  freshness  for  ever. 
Her  girdle  was  woven  in  a  kind  of  green  and  silver  pattern  of  jas- 
mine leaves  and  starry  blossoms,  but  of  a  species  far  more  lovely 
than  any  in  Mr.  Paxton's  Magazine.  She  held  a  bouquet  in  her 
hand,  composed  of  sweet  scented  camellias,  and  violets  as  dark  as 
sapphire,  which  she  said  her  gardener  had  brought  from  the  new 
planet'  Neptune  ;  and  unique  and  fragrant  blossoms  continually 
dropped,  from  her  robe,  as  she  walked  about,  or  raised  her  arms  in 
gestures  graceful  as  the  swinging  of  a  garland  wooed  by  the  west 
wind. 

After  some  stammering  on  our  own  part,  about  the  honor  con- 
ferred on  an  humble  mortal  like  ourselves — rare  visits  of  the  god- 
desses to  earth,  etc.,  they,  understanding,  probably,  what  Mr.  Beecher 
calls  our  "  amiable  fondness  for  the  Hudson,"  obligingly  put  us  at 
our  ease,  by  paying  us  some  compliments  on  the  sceneiy  of  the 
Highlands,  as  seen  at  that  moment  from  our  garden  seat,  comparing 
the  broad  river,  radiant  with  the  chaste  light  of  the  moon,  to  some 
favorite  lake  owned  by  the  immortals,  of  whose  name,  we  are  sorry 
to  say,  we  are  at  this  moment  entirely  oblivious. 

Our  readers  will  not,  of  course,  expect  us  to  repeat  all  that  passed 
during  this  enchanting  interview.  But,  as  we  are  obliged  to  own 
that  the  visit  was  not  altogether  on  our  own  behalf,  or  rather  that 
the  turn  of  the  discourse  held  by  our  immortal  guests  showed  that 
it  was  chiefly  intended  to  be  laid  before  the  readers  of  the  Horticul- 
turist^  we  lose  no  time  in  putting  the  latter  en  rapport. 


20 


HORTICULTURE. 


Pomona  opened  the  discourse  by  a  few  graceful  remarks,  touci 
jig  the  gratification  it  gave  them  that  the  modems,  down  to  the 
present  generation,  had  piously  recognized  her  guardian  rights  and 
„hose  of  her  sister  Flora,  even  while  those  of  many  of  the  other 
Olympians,  such  as  Jupiter,  Pan,  Vulcan,  and  the  like,  were  nearly 
forgotten.  The  wonderful  fondness  for  fruits  and  flowers,  growing 
up  in  the  western  world,  had,  she  declared,  not  escaped  her  eye,  and 
it  received  her  warmest  approbation.  She  said  something  that  we 
do  not  quite  remember,  in  the  style  of  that  good  old  phrase,  of 
"  making  the  wilderness  blossom  like  the  rose,"  and  declared  that 
Flora  intended  to  festoon  every  cottage  in  America  with  double 
Michigan  roses,  Wistarias,  and  sweet-scented  vines.  For  her  own 
part,  she  said,  her  people  were  busy  enough  in  their  invisible  super- 
intendence of  the  orchard  planting  now  going  on  at  such  a  gigantic 
rate  in  America,  especially  in  the  Western  States.  Such  was  the 
fever  in  some  of  those  districts,  to  get  large  plantations  of  fruit,  that 
she  could  not,  for  the  life  of  her,  induce  men  to  pause  long  enough 
to  select  their  ground  or  the  proper  sorts  of  fruit  to  be  planted.  As 
a  last  resort,  to  keep  them  a  little  in  check,  she  was  obliged,  against 
her  better  feelings,  to  allow  the  blight  to  cut  off  part  of  an  orchard 
now  and  then.  Otherwise  the  whole  country  would  be  filled  up 
with  poor  miserable  odds  and  ends  from  Europe — "Beurres  and 
Bergamots,  with  more  sound  in  their  French  names,  than  flavor 
under  their  skins." 

These  last  words,  we  confess,  startled  us  so  much,  that  we  opened 
our  eyes  rather  widely,  and  called  upon  the  name  of  Dr.  Van  Mons, 
the  great  Belgian — spoke  of  the  gratitude  of  the  pomological  world, 
etc.  To  our  surprise,  Pomona  declared  that  she  had  her  doubts 
about  the  Belgian  professor — she  said  he  was  a  very  crotchety  man, 
and  although  he  had  devoted  his  life  to  her  service,  yet  he  had  such 
strange  whims  and  caprices  about  improving  fruits  by  a  regular  sys- 
tem of  degeneration  or  running  them  out,  that  she  could  make 
nothing  of  him.  "  Depend  upon  it,"  she  said,  "  many  of  his  sorts 
are  worthless, — most  of  them  have  sickly  constitutions,  and,"  she 
added,  with  some  emphasis,  snapping  her  fingers  as  she  spoke,  "  I 
would  not  give  one  sound  healthy  seedling  pear,  springing  up  under 
natural  culture  in  your  American  soil,  for  all  that  Dr.  Van  Mons 


A  TALK  WITH  FLORA  AND  POMONA. 


21 


ever  raised ! "  [We  beg  our  readers  to  understand  that  these  were 
Pomona's  words  and  not  ours.]  She  gave  us,  after  this,  very  special 
charge  to  impress  it  upon  her  devotees  in  the  United  States,  not  to 
be  too  much  smitten  with  the  love  of  new  names,  and  great  collec- 
tions. It  gave  her  more  satisfaction  to  see  the  orchards  and  fruit 
room  of  one  of  her  liege  subjects  teeming  with  the  abundance  of  the 
few  sorts  of  real  golden  merit,  than  to  see  whole  acres  of  new  varie- 
ties that  have  no  other  value  than  that  of  novelty.  She  said  too, 
that  it  was  truly  amazing  how  this  passion  for  collecting  fruits — a 
genuine  monomania — grew  upon  a  poor  mortal,  when  he  was  once 
attached  by  it ;  so  that  indeed,  if  he  could  not  add  every  season  at 
least  fifty  new  sorts  from  the  continent,  with  some  such  outlandish 
names,  (which  she  said  she  would  never  recognize,)  as  Beurr€  bleu 
(Pete  nouveau  de  Scrowsywowsy,  etc.,  he  would  positively  hang  him- 
self in  a  fit  of  the  blues  ! 

Pomona  further  drew  our  attention  in  some  sly  remarks  that 
were  half  earnest  and  half  satire,  to  the  figure  that  many  of  these 
"Belgian  pericarps"  cut  at  those  handsome  levees,  which  her  vota- 
ries among  us  hold  in  the  shape  of  the  great  September  exhibitions. 
She  said  it  was  really  droll  to  see,  at  such  shows  as  those  of  our  two 
large  cities,  where  there  was  a  profusion  of  ripe  and  luscious  fruit, 
that  she  would  have  been  proud  of  in  her  own  celestial  orchards — 
to  see  there  intermingled  some  hundred  or  so  mean  looking,  hard 
green  pears,  that  never  had  ripened,  or  never  did,  would,  or  could 
ripen,  so  as  to  be  palatable  to  any  but  a  New  Zealander.  "  Do  so- 
licit my  friends  there,  for  the  sake  of  my  feelings,"  said  she,  "to  give 
the  gentlemen  who  take  such  pleasure  in  exhibiting  this  degenerate 
foreign  squad,  a  separate  'green  room'  for  themselves."  To  this 
remark  we  smiled  and  bowed  low,  though  we  would  not  venture  to 
carry  out  her  suggestion  for  the  world. 

We  had  a  delightful  little  chat  with  Flora,  about  some  new 
plants  which  she  told  us  grew  in  certain  unknown  passes  in  the 
Rocky  Mountains,  and  mountainous  parts  of  Mexico,  that  will  prove 
quite  hardy  with  us,  and  which  neither  Mr.  Fortune  nor  the  London 
Horticultural  Society  know  any  thing  about.  But  she  finally  in- 
formed us,  that  her  real  object  in  making  herself  visible  on  the 
earth  at  present,  with  Madam  Pomona,  was  to  beg  us  to  enter  her 


22 


HORTICULTURE. 


formal  and  decided  protest  against  the  style  of  decorations  called 
after  her  name,  and  which  had,  for  several  years  past,  made  the 
otherwise  brilliant  Autumnal  Horticultural  Shows  in  our  quar- 
ter of  the  globe  so  disagreeable  an  offering  to  her.  "  To  call  the 
monstrous  formations,  which,  under  the  name  of  temples,  stars,  tri- 
pods, and  obelisks — great  bizarre  masses  of  flowers  plastered  on 
wooden  frames — to  call  these  after  her  name,  '  Floral  designs,'  was," 
she  said,  "  even  more  than  the  patience  of  a  goddess  could  bear." 
If  those  who  make  them  are  sincerely  her  devoted  admirers,  as  they 
profess  to  be,  she  begged  us  to  say  to  them,  that,  unless  they  had 
designs  upon  her  flow  of  youth  and  spirits,  that  had  hitherto  been 
eternal,  she  trusted  they  would  hereafter  desist. 

We  hereupon  ventured  to  offer  some  apology  for  the  offending 
parties,  by  saying  they  were  mostly  the  work  of  the  "bone  and 
sinew"  of  the  gardening  profession,  men  with  blunt  fingers  but 
earnest  souls,  who  worked  for  days  upon  what  they  fancied  was  a 
worthy  offering  to  be  laid  upon  her  altars.  She  smiled,  and  said 
the  intention  was  accepted,  but  not  its  results,  and  hinted  something 
about  the  same  labor  being  performed  under  the  direction  of  the 
more  tasteful  eye  of  ladies,  who  should  invent  and  arrange,  while 
the  fingers  of  honest  toil  wrought  the  ruder  outline  only. 

Flora  then  hinted  to  us,  how  much  more  beautiful  flowers  were 
when  arranged  in  the  simplest  forms,  and  said,  when  combined 
or  moulded  into  shapes  or  devices,  nothing  more  elaborate  or  arti- 
ficial than  a  vase-form  is  really  pleasing.  Baskets,  moss-covered 
and  flower-woven,  she  said,  were  thought  elegant  enough  for  Para- 
dise itself.  "  There  are  not  only  baskets,"  continued  she, "  that  are  beau- 
tiful lying  down,  and  showing  inside  a  rich  mosaic  of  flowers — each 
basket,  large  or  small,  devoted  perhaps,  to  some  one  choice  flower 
in  its  many  varieties ;  but  baskets  on  the  tops  of  mossy  pedestals, 
bearing  tasteful  emblems  interwoven  on  their  sides ;  and  baskets 
hanging  from  ceilings,  or  high  festooned  arches — in  which  case 
they  display  in  the  most  graceful  and  becoming  manner,  all 
manner  of  drooping  and  twining  plants,  the  latter  stealing  out 
of  the  nest  or  body  of  the  basket,  and  waving  to  and  fro  in  the  air 
they  perfume."  " Then  there  is  the  garland"  continued  our  fair 
guest ;  "  it  is  quite  amazing,  that  since  the  days  of  those  clever  and 


A  TALK  WITH  FLORA  AND  POMONA. 


23 


harmonious  people,  the  Greeks,  no  one  seems  to  know  any  thing  of 
the  beauty  of  the  garland.  Now  in  fact  nothing  is  more  beautiful 
or  becoming  than  flowers  woven  into  tasteful  garlands  or  chaplets. 
The  form  a  circle — that  emblem  of  eternity,  so  full  of  dread  and 
mystery  to  you  mortals — and  the  size  is  one  that  may  be  carried  in 
the  hand  or  hung  up,  and  it  always  looks  lovely.  Believe  me, 
nothing  is  prettier  in  my  eyes,  which,  young  as  they  look,  have  had 
many  thousands  of  your  years  of  experience,  than  a  fresh,  green 
garland  woven  with  bright  roses." 

As  she  said  this,  she  seized  a  somewhat  common  basket  that  lay 
near  us,  and  passing  her  delicate  fingers  over  it,  as  she  plucked  a 
few  flowers  from  the  surrounding  plants,  she  held  it,  a  picture  of 
magical  verdure  and  blossoms,  aloft  in  the  air  over  our  heads,  while 
on  her  arm  she  hung  a  garland  as  exquisitely  formed  and  propor- 
tioned as  if  cut  in  marble,  with,  at  the  same  time,  all  the  airiness 
which  only  flowers  can  have.  The  effect  was  ravishing !  simplicity, 
delicacy,  gracefulness,  and  perfume.  The  goddess  moved  around  us 
with  an  air  and  in  an  attitude  compared  with  which  the  glories  of 
Titian  and  Eaphael  seem  tame  and  cold,  and  as  the  basket  was  again 
passing  over  our  head,  we  were  just  reaching  out  our  hand  to  detain 
the  lovely  vision,  when,  unluckily,  the  parti-colored  dog  that  guards 
our  demesne,  broke  into  a  loud  bark ;  Pomona  hastily  seized  her 
golden  apple ;  Flora  dropped  our  basket  (which  fell  to  the  ground  in 
its  wonted  garb  of  plain  willow),  and  both  vanished  into  the  dusky 
gloom  of  the  night  shadows ;  at  that  moment,  suddenly  rising  up 
in  our  hammock,  we  found  we  had  been — dreaming. 


V. 


A  CHAPTER  ON  EOSES. 

August,  1848. 

AFRESH  bouquet  of  midsummer  roses  stands  upon  the  table  be- 
fore  us.  The  morning  dew-drops  hang,  heavy  as  emeralds,  upon 
branch  and  buds ;  soft  and  rich  colors  delight  the  eye  with  their 
lovely  hues,  and  that  rose-odor,  which,  every  one  feels,  has  not  lost 
anything  of  its  divine  sweetness  since  the  first  day  the  flower  bloomed 
in  that  heaven-garden  of  Eve,  fills  the  ah.  Yes,  the  flowers  have 
it ;  and  if  we  are  not  fairly  forced  to  say  something  this  month  in 
behalf  of  roses,  then  was  Dr.  Darwin  mistaken  in  his  theory  of 
vegetable  magnetism. 

We  believe  it  was  that  monster,  the  Duke  of  Guise,  who  al- 
ways made  his  escape  at  the  sight  of  a  rose.  If  there  are  any  "  out- 
side barbarians  "  of  this  stamp  among  the  readers  of  our  "  flowery 
land,"  let  them  glide  out  while  the  door  is  open.  They  deserve  to 
be  drowned  in  a  butt  of  attar  of  rose — the  insensibles !  We  can 
well  afford  to  let  them  go,  indeed ;  for  we  feel  that  we  have  only  to 
mention  the  name  of  a  rose,  to  draw  more  closely  around  us  the 
thousands  of  the  fairer  and  better  part  of  our  readers,  with  whom  it 
is  the  type  of  every  thing  fair  and  lovely  on  earth. 

"Dear  flower  of  heaven  and  love  !  thou  glorious  thing 
That  lookest  out  the  garden  nooks  among  ; 
Rose,  that  art  ever  fair  and  ever  young  ; 
"Was  it  some  angel  on  invisible  wing 
Hover'd  around  thy  fragrant  sleep,  to  fling 
His  blowing  mantle  of  warm  sunset  hues 


A  CHAPTER  ON  ROSES. 


25 


O'er  thy  unfolding  petals,  wet  with  dews, 
Such  as  the  flower-fays  to  Titania  bring  ? 

0  flower  of  thousand  memories  and  dreams, 
That  take  the  heart  with  faintness,  while  we  gaze 
On  the  rich  depths  of  thy  inwoven  maze ; 
From  the  green  banks  of  Eden's  blessed  streams 

1  dream'd  thee  brought,  of  brighter  days  to  tell 
Long  pass'd,  but  promised  yet  with  us  to  dwell." 

If  there  is  any  proof  necessary  that  the  rose  has  a  diviner  origin 
than  all  other  flowers,  it  is  easily  found  in  the  unvarying  constancy  of 
mankind  to  it  for  so  many  long  centuries.  Fashions  there  have  been 
innumerable,  in  ornaments  of  all  sorts,  from  simple  sea-shells,  worn 
by  Nubian  maidens,  to  costly  diamonds,  that  heightened  the  charms 
of  the  proudest  court  beauty — silver,  gold,  precious  stones — all  have 
their  season  of  favor,  and  then  again  sink  into  comparative  neglect ; 
but  a  simple  rose  has  ever  been  and  will  ever  be  the  favorite  emblem 
and  adornment  of  beauty. 

"  Whatsoe'er  of  beauty 
Yearns,  and  yet  reposes, 
Blush,  and  bosom,  and  sweet  breath, 
Took  a  shape  in  roses."       Leigh  Hunt. 

Now  the  secret  of  this  perpetual  and  undying  charm  about  the 
rose,  is  not  to  be  found  in  its  color — there  are  bright  lilies,  and  gay 
tiger-flowers,  and  dazzling  air-plants,  far  more  rich  and  vivid  :  it  is 
not  alone  in  fragrance, — for  there  are  violets  and  jasmines  with 
"  more  passionate  sighs  of  sweetness  ; "  it  is  not  in  foliage,  for  there 
are  laurels  and  magnolias,  with  leaves  of  richer  and  more  glossy 
green.  Where,  then,  does  this  secret  of  the  world's  six  thousand 
years'  homage  lie  ? 

In  its  being  a  type  of  infinity.  Of  infinity !  says  our  most 
innocent  maiden  reader,  who  loves  roses  without  caring  why,  and 
who  does  not  love  infinity,  because  she  does  not  understand  it. 
Roses,  a  type  of  infinity,  says  our  theological  reader,  who  has  been 
in  the  habit  of  considering  all  flowers  of  the  field,  aye,  and  the  gar- 
den, too,  as  emblems  of  the  short-lived  race  of  man — "T^orn  to 
trouble  as  the  sparks  fly  upward."  Yes,  we  have  said  it,  and  for 
the  honor  of  the  rose  we  will  prove  it,  that  the  secret  of  the  world's 


26 


HORTICULTURE. 


devotion  to  the  rose, — of  her  being  the  queen  of  flowers  by  accla- 
mation always  and  for  ever,  is  that  the  rose  is  a  type  of  infinity. 

In  the  first  place,  then,  the  rose  is  a  type  of  infinity,  because 
there  is  no  limit  to  the  variety  and  beauty  of  the  forms  and  colors 
which  it  assumes.  From  the  wild  rose,  whose  sweet,  faint  odor  is 
wasted  in  the  depths  of  the  silent  wood,  or  the  eglantine,  whose 
wreaths  of  fresh  sweet  blossoms  embroider  even  the  dusty  road 
sides, 

"  Starring  each  bush  in  lane9  and  glades," 

to  that  most  perfect,  full,  rounded,  and  odorous  flower,  that  swells 
the  heart  of  the  florist  as  he  beholds  its  richness  and  symmetry, 
what  an  innumerable  range  of  shades,  and  forms,  and  colors !  And, 
indeed,  with  the  hundreds  and  thousands  of  roses  of  modern  times, 
we  still  know  little  of  all  the  varied  shapes  which  the  plant  has  taken 
in  by-gone  days,  and  which  have  perished  with  the  thousand  other 
refinements  and  luxuries  of  the  nations  who  cultivated  and  enjoyed 
them.* 

All  this  variety  of  form,  so  far  from  destroying  the  admhation 
of  mankind  for  the  rose,  actually  increases  it.  This  very  character 
of  infinity,  in  its  beauty,  makes  it  the  symbol  and  interpreter  of  the 

*  Many  of  our  readers  may  not  be  aware  to  what  perfection  the  culture 
of  flowers  was  once  carried  in  Rome.  During  Caesar's  reign,  so  abundant 
had  forced  flowers  become  in  that  city,  that  when  the  Egyptians,  intending  to 
compliment  him  on  his  birthday,  sent  him  roses  in  midwinter,  they  found 
their  present  almost  valueless  from  the  profusion  of  roses  in  Rome.  The 
following  translation  of  Martial's  Latin  Ode  to  Caesar  upon  this  present, 
will  give  some  idea  of  the  state  of  floriculture  then.  There  can  scarcely  be 
a  doubt  that  there  were  hundreds  of  sorts  of  roses  known  to,  and  cultivated 
by  the  Romans,  now  entirely  lost. 

"  The  ambitious  inhabitants  of  the  land  watered  by  the  Nile,  have  sent 
thee,  0  Caesar,  the  roses  of  winter,  as  a  present,  valuable  for  its  novelty. 
But  the  boatman  of  Memphis  will  laugh  at  the  gardens  of  Pharaoh  as  soon 
as  he  has  taken  one  step  in  thy  capital  city ;  for  the  spring  in  all  its  charms, 
and  the  flowers  in  their  fragrance  and  beauty,  equal  the  glory  of  the  fields 
of  Paestum.  "Wherever  he  wanders,  or  casts  Ms  eyes,  every  street  is  brilliant 
with  garlands  of  roses.  And  thou,  0  Nile !  must  yield  to  the  fogs  of  Rome. 
Send  us  thy  harvests,  and  we  will  send  thee  roses." 


A  CHAPTER  ON  ROSES.  27 

wfections  of  all  ranks,  classes,  and  conditions  of  men.  The  poet, 
amid  all  the  perfections  of  the  parterre,  still  prefers  the  scent  of  the 
woods  and  the  air  of  freedom  about  the  original  blossom,  and  says — 

"  Far  dearer  to  me  is  the  wild  flower  that  grows 
Unseen  by  the  brook  where  in  shadow  it  flows." 

The  cabbage-rose,  that  perfect  emblem  of  healthful  rural  life,  is 
the  pride  of  the  cottager;  the  daily  China  rose,  which  cheats  the 
window  of  the  crowded  city  of  its  gloom,  is  the  joy  of  the  daughter 
of  the  humblest  day  laborer ;  the  delicate  and  odorous  tea-rose, 
fated  to  be  admired  and  to  languish  in  the  drawing-room  or  the 
boudoir,  wins  its  place  in  the  affections  of  those  of  most  cultivated 
and  fastidious  tastes ;  while  the  moss-rose  unites  the  admiration  of 
all  classes,  coming  in  as  it  does  with  its  last  added  charm,  to  com- 
plete the  circle  of  perfection. 

Again,  there  is  the  infinity  of  associations  which  float  like  rich 
incense  about  the  rose,  and  that,  after  all,  bind  it  most  strongly  to 
us  ;  for  they  represent  the  accumulated  wealth  of  joys  and  sorrows, 
which  has  become  so  inseparably  connected  with  it  in  the  human 
heart. 

"  What  were  life  without  a  rose  1 " 

seems  to  many,  doubtless,  to  be  a  most  extravagant  apostrophe ; 
yet,  if  this  single  flower  were  to  be  struck  out  of  existence,  what  a 
chasm  in  the  language  of  the  heart  would  be  found  without  it ! 
"What  would  the  poets  do  ?  They  would  find  their  finest  emblem  of 
female  loveliness  stolen  away.  Listen,  for  instance,  to  old  Beaumont 
and  Fletcher : 

 "  Of  all  flowers, 

Methinks  a  Rose  is  best ; 

It  is  the  very  emblem  of  a  maid; 

For  when  the  west  wind  courts  her  gently, 

How  modestly  she  blows  and  paints  the  sun 

"With  her  chaste  blushes !    When  the  north  wind  comes  near  her, 

Rude  and  impatient,  then,  like  chastity, 

She  locks  her  beauties  in  her  bud  again, 

And  leaves  him  to  base  briars." 


28 


HORTICULTURE. 


What  would  the  lovers  do?  What  tender  confessions,  hitherto 
uttered  by  fair  half-open  buds  and  bouquets,  more  eloquent  of  pas- 
sion than  the  Nouvelle  Heloise,  would  have  to  be  stammered  forth 
in  miserable  clumsy  words !  How  many  doubtful  suits  would  be 
lost — how  many  bashful  hearts  would  never  venture — how  many 
rash  and  reckless  adventurers  would  be  shipwrecked,  if  the  tender 
and  expressive  language  of  the  rose  were  all  suddenly  lost  and 
blotted  out !  What  could  we  place  in  the  hands  of  childhood  to 
mirror  back  its  innocent  expression  so  truly?  What  blossoms 
could  bloom  on  the  breast  of  the  youthful  beauty  so  typical  of  the 
infinity  of  hope  and  sweet  thoughts,  that  lie  folded  up  in  her  own  heart, 
as  fair  young  rose-buds  ?  What  wreath  could  so  lovingly  encircle 
the  head  of  the  fair  young  bride  as  that  of  white  roses,  full  of  purity 
and  grace  ?  And,  last  of  all,  what  blossom,  so  expressive  of  human 
affections,  could  we  find  at  the  bier  to  take  the  place  of  the  rose ; 
the  rose,  sacred  to  this  purpose  for  so  many  ages,  and  with  so  many 
nations, 

 "  because  its  breath 

Is  rich  beyond  the  rest ;  and  when  it  dies 
It  doth  bequeath  a  charm  to  sweeten  death." 

Barry  Cornwall. 

The  rose  is  not  only  infinite  in  its  forms,  hues,  types,  and  asso- 
ciations, but  it  deserves  an  infinite  number  of  admirers.  This  is  the 
explanation  of  our  desire  to  be  eloquent  in  its  behalf.  There  are, 
unfortunately,  some  persons  who,  however  lovely,  beautiful,  or  per- 
fect a  thing  may  be  in  itself,  will  never  raise  their  eyes  to  look 
at  it,  or  open  their  hearts  to  admire  it,  unless  it  is  incessantly  talked 
about. 

We  have  always  observed,  however,  that  the  great  difficulty 
with  those  who  like  to  talk  about  fruits  and  flowers  is,  when  once 
talking,  to  stop.  There  is  no  doubt  whatever,  that  we  might  go  on, 
therefore,  and  fill  this  whole  number  with  roses,  rosariums,  rosaries, 
and  rose-water,  but  that  some  of  our  western  readers,  who  are  look- 
ing for  us  to  give  them  a  cure  for  the  pear-blight,  might  cry  out — 
"  a  blight  on  your  roses  ! "  We  must,  therefore,  grow  more  systematic 
and  considerate  in  our  remarks. 


A  CHAPTER  ON  ROSES. 


29 


We  thought  some  years  ago  that  we  had  seen  that  ultima  thule 
— "  a  perfect  rose."  But  we  were  mistaken !  Old  associates, 
familiar  names,  and  long  cherished  sorts  have  their  proper  hold  on 
our  affections ;  hut — we  are  hound  to  confess  it — modern  florists 
have  coaxed  and  teased  nature  till  she  has  given  them  roses  more 
perfect  in  form,  more  airy,  rich  and  hrilliant  in  color,  and  more 
delicate  and  exquisite  in  perfume,  than  any  that  our  grandfathers 
knew  or  dreamed  of.  And,  more  than  all,  they  have  produced 
roses — in  abundance,  as  large  and  fragant  as  June  roses — that 
blossom  all  the  year  round.  If  this  unceasingly  renewed  perpetuity 
of  charms  does  not  complete  the  claims  of  the  rose  to  infinity,  as 
far  as  any  plant  can  express  that  quality,  then  are  we  no  metaphysician. 

There  is  certainly  something  instinctive  and  true  in  that  fa- 
vorite fancy  of  the  poets — that  roses  are  the  type  or  symbol  of 
female  loveliness — 

"  Know  you  not  our  only- 
Rival  flower — the  human  ? 

Loveliest  weight,  on  lightest  foot — 
Joy-abundant  woman," 

sings  Leigh  Hunt  for  the  roses.  And,  we  will  addj  it  is  striking 
and  curious  that  refined  and  careful  culture  has  the  same  effect  on 
the  outward  conformation  of  the  rose  that  it  has  on  feminine  beauty. 
The  Tea  and  the  Bourbon  roses  may  be  taken  as  an  illustration  of 
this. .  They  are  the  last  and  finest  product  of  the  most  perfect  cul- 
ture of  the  garden  ;  and  do  they  not,  in  their  graceful  airy  forms, 
their  subdued  and  bewitching  odors,  and  their  refined  and  delicate 
colors,  body  forth  the  most  perfect  symbol  of  the  most  refined  and 
cultivated  Imogen  or  Ophelia  that  it  is  possible  to  conceive  ?  We 
claim  the  entire  merit  of  pointing  this  out,  and  leave  it  for  some  poet 
to  make  himself  immortal  by ! 

There  are  odd,  crotchety  persons  among  horticulturists,  who 
correspond  to  old  bachelors  in  society,  that  are  never  satisfied  to  love 
any  thing  in  particular,  because  they  have  really  no  affections  of 
their  own  to  fix  upon  any  object,  and  who  are  always,  for  instance, 
excusing  their  want  of  devotion  to  the  rose,  under  the  pretence  that 
among  so  many  beautiful  varieties  it  is  impossible  to  choose. 


30 


HORTICULTURE. 


Undoubtedly  there  is  an  embarras  de  richesses  in  the  multitude 
of  beautiful  varieties  that  compose  the  groups  and  subdivisions  of 
the  rose  family.  So  many  lovely  forms  and  colors  are  there,  daz- 
zling the  eye,  and  attracting  the  senses,  that  it  requires  a  man  or 
woman  of  nerve  as  well  as  taste,  to  decide  and  select.  Some  of  the 
great  rose-growers  continually  try  to  confuse  the  poor  amateur  by 
their  long  catalogues,  and  by  their  advertisements  about  "  acres  of 
roses."  (Mr.  Paul,  an  English  nurseryman,  published,  in  June  last, 
that  he  had  70,000  plants  in  bloom  at  once !)  This  is  puzzling 
enough,  even  to  one  that  has  his  eyes  wide  open,  and  the  sorts  in 
full  blaze  of  beauty  before  them.  What,  then,  must  be  the  quan- 
dary in  which  the  novice,  not  yet  introduced  into  the  aristocracy  of 
roses,  whose  knowledge  only  goes  up  to  a  "  cabbage-rose,"  or  a 
"  maiden's  blush,"  and  who  has  in  his  hand  a  long  list  of  some  great 
collector — what,  we  say,  must  be  his  perplexity,  when  he  suddenly 
finds  amidst  all  the  renowned  names  of  old  and  new  world's  history, 
all  the  aristocrats  and  republicans,  heroes  and  heroines  of  past  and 
present  times — Napoleon,  Prince  Esterhazy,  Tippoo  Saib,  Semira- 
mis,  Duchess  of  Sutherland,  Princesse  Clementine,  with  occasionally 
such  touches  of  sentiment  from  the  French  rose-growers,  as  Souve- 
nir (Pun  Ami,  or  Nid  d 'Amour  (nest  of  love !)  &c.  &c.  In  this 
whirlpool  of  rank,  fashion,  and  sentiment,  the  poor  novitiate  rose- 
hunter  is  likely  enough  to  be  quite  wrecked  ;  and  instead  of  look- 
ing out  for  a  perfect  rose,  it  is  a  thousand  to  one  that  he  finds  him- 
self confused  amid  the  names  of  princes,  princesses,  and  lovely 
duchesses,  a  vivid  picture  of  whose  charms  rises  to  his  imagination 
as  he  reads  the  brief  words  "  pale  flesh,  wax-like,  superb,"  or  "  large, 
peifect  form,  beautiful,"  or  "  pale  blush,  very  pretty ;"  so  that  it  is 
ten  to  one  that  Duchesses,  not  Roses,  are  all  the  while  at  the  bottom 
of  his  imagination ! 

Now,  the  only  way  to  help  the  rose  novices  out  of  this  difficulty, 
is  for  all  the  initiated  to  confess  their  favorites.  No  doubt  it  will  be  a 
hard  task  for  those  who  have  had  butterfly  fancies, — coquetting  first 
with  one  family  and  then  with  another.  But  we  trust  these  horti- 
cultural flirts  are  rare  among  the  more  experienced  of  our  garden- 
ing readers, — persons  of  sense,  who  have  laid  aside  such  follies,  as 
only  becoming  to  youthful  and  inexperienced  amateurs. 


A  CHAPTER  ON  ROSES. 


31 


We  have  long  ago  invited  our  correspondents  to  send  us  their 
"  confessions,"  which,  if  not  as  mysterious  and  fascinating  as  those 
of  Rousseau,  would  be  found  far  more  innocent  and  wholesome  to 
our  readers.  Mr.  Buist  (whose  new  nursery  grounds,  near  Phila- 
delphia, have,  we  learn,  been  a  paradise  of  roses  this  season),  has 
already  sent  us  his  list  of  favorites,  which  we  have  before  made  pub- 
lic, to  the  great  satisfaction  of  many  about  to  form  little  rose-gar- 
dens. Dr.  Valk,  also,  has  indicated  his  preferences.  And  to  en- 
courage other  devotees— more  experienced  than  ourselves — we  give 
our  own  list  of  favorites,  as  follows : 

First  of  all  roses,  then,  in  our  estimation,  stands  the  Bourbons 
(the  only  branch  of  the  family,  not  repudiated  by  republicans). 
The  most  perpetual  of  all  perpetuals,  the  most  lovely  in  form,  of  all 
colors,  and  many  of  them  of  the  richest  fragrance ;  and,  for  us 
northerners,  most  of  all,  hardy  and  easi  ly  cultivated,  we  cannot  but 
give  them  the  first  rank.    Let  us,  then,  say — 

HALE  A  DOZEN  BOURBON  ROSES. 

Souvenir  de  Malmaison,  pale  flesh  color. 

Paul  Joseph,  'purplish  crimson. 

Hermosa,  deep  rose. 

Queen,  delicate  fawn  color. 

Dupetit  Thouars,  changeable  carmine. 

Acidalie,  white. 

Souvenir  de  Malmaison  is,  take  it  altogether, — its  constant 
blooming  habit,  its  large  size,  hardiness,  beautiful  form,  exquisite 
color,  and  charming  fragrance, — our  favorite  rose  ;  the  rose  which, 
if  we  should  be  condemned  to  that  hard  penance  of  cultivating  but 
one  variety,  our  choice  would  immediately  settle  upon.  Its  beauty 
suggests  a  blending  of  the  finest  sculpture  and  the  loveliest  femi- 
nine complexion. 

Second  to  the  Bourbons,  we  rank  the  Remontantes,  as  the 
French  term  them ;  a  better  name  than  the  English  one — perpe- 
tuals ;  for  they  are  by  no  means  perpetual  in  their  blooming  habit, 
when  compared  with  the  Bourbons,  China,  or  Tea  roses.  They  are, 
in  fact,  June  roses,  that  bloom  two  or  three  times  in  the  season, 


32 


HORTICULTURE. 


whenever  strong  new  shoots  spring  up ;  hence,  no  name  so  appro- 
priate as  Remontante, — sending  up  new  flower  shoots.  We  think 
this  class  of  roses  has  been  a  little  overrated  by  rose-growers.  Its 
great  merit  is  the  true,  old-fashioned  rose  character  of  the  blossoms, 
— large  and  fragrant  as  a  damask  or  Provence  rose.  But  in  this 
climate,  Remontantes  cannot  be  depended  on  for  a  constant  supply 
of  flowers,  like  Bourbon  roses.    Here  are  our  favorite : 

HALF  A  DOZEN  REMONTANTES. 

La  Reine,  deep  rose,  very  large. 
Duchess  of  Sutherland,  pale  rose. 
Crimson  Perpetual,  light  crimson. 
Aubernon,  brilliant  crimson. 
Lady  Alice  Peel,  fine  deep  pink. 
Madame  Dameme,  dark  crimson. 

Next  to  these  come  the  China  Roses,  less  fragrant,  but  everlast- 
ingly in  bloom,  and  with  very  bright  and  rich  colors. 

**         HALF  A  DOZEN  CHINA  ROSES. 

Mrs.  Bosanquet,  exquisite  pale  flesh  color. 

Madame  Breon,  rose. 

Eugene  Beauharnais,  bright  crimson. 

Clara  Sylvain,  pure  white. 

Cramoisie  Superieure,  brilliant  crimson. 

Virginale,  blush. 

The  Tea  Roses,  most  refined  of  all  roses,  unluckily,  require 
considerable  shelter  and  care  in  winter,  in  this  climate ;  but  they  so 
richly  repay  all,  that  no  rose-lover  can  grudge  them  this  trouble. 
Tea  roses  are,  indeed,  to  the  common  garden  varieties  what  the 
finest  porcelain  is  to  vulgar  crockery  ware. 

HALF  A  DOZEN  TEA  ROSES. 

Safrano,  the  buds  rich  deep  fawn. 

Souvenir  d'un  Ami,  salmon,  shaded  with  rose. 

Goubault,  bright  rose,  large  and  fragrant. 


A  CHAPTER  ON  ROSES. 


33 


Devoniensis,  creamy  white. 

Bougere,  glossy  bronze. 

Josephine  Malton,  beautiful  shaded  white. 

We  thought  to  give  Noisettes  the  go-by ;  but  the  saucy,  ram- 
pant little  beauties  climb  up  and  thrust  their  clusters  of  bright  blos- 
soms into  our  face,  and  will  be  heard.    So  here  they  are  * 

HALF  A  DOZEN  NOISETTES. 

Solfaterre,  bright  sulphur,  large. 

Jaune  Desprez,  large  bright  fawn. 

Cloth  of  Gold,  pure  yellow,  fine. 

Aimee  Vibert,  pure  white,  very  free  bloomer. 

Fellenberg,  brilliant  crimson. 

Joan  of  Arc,  pure  white. 

"  Girdle  of  Venus !  does  he  call  this  a  select  list  ?"  exclaims 
some  leveller,  who  expected  us  to  compress  all  rose  perfections  into 
half  a  dozen  sorts ;  when  here  we  find,  on  looking  back,  that  we 
have  thirty,  and  even  then,  there  is  not  a  single  moss  rose,  climbing 
rose,  Provence  rose,  damask  rose,  to  say  nothing  of  "  musk  roses," 
"microphylla  roses,"  and  half  a  dozen  other  divisions  that  we  boldly 
shut  our  eyes  upon !  Well,  if  the  truth  must  come  out,  we  confess 
it  boldly,  that  we  are  worshippers  of  the  everblooming  roses. 
Compared  with  them,  beautiful  as  all  other  roses  may  be  and  are 
(we  can't  deny  it),  they  have  little  chance  of  favor  with  those  that 
we  have  named,  which  are  a  perpetual  garland  of  sweetness.  It  is 
the  difference  between  a  smile  once  a  year,  and  a  golden  temper,  al- 
ways sweetness  and  sunshine.  Why,  the  everblooming  roses  make 
a  garden  of  themselves  !  Not  a  day  without  rich  colors,  delicious 
perfume,  luxuriant  foliage.  No,  take  the  lists  as  they  are — too 
small  by  half ;  for  we  cannot  cut  a  name  out  of  them. 

And  yet,  there  are  a  few  other  roses  that  ought  to  be  in  the 
smallest  collection.  That  finest  of  all  rose-gems,  the  Old  Bed  Moss, 
still  at  the  head  of  all  moss  roses,  and  its  curious  cousin,  the  Crested 
Moss,  must  have  their  place.  Those  fine  hardy  climbers,  that  in 
northern  gardens  will  grow  in  any  exposure,  and  cover  the  highest 
3 


SI- 


HORTICULTURE. 


walls  or  trellises  with  garlands  of  beauty, — the  Queen  of  the  Prai- 
ries and  Baltimore  Belle  (or,  for  southern  gardens,  say — Laure  Da- 
voust,  and  Greville,  and  Ruga  Ayrshire)  ;  that  finest  and  richest 
of  all  yellow  roses,  the  double  Persian  Yellow,  and  half  a  dozen  of 
the  gems  among  the  hybrid  roses,  such  as  ChCnMole,  George  the 
Fourth,  Village  Maid,  Great  Western,  Fulgeus,  Blanchefieur  ;  we 
should  try,  at  least,  to  make  room  for  these  also. 

If  we  were  to  have  but  three  roses,  for  our  own  personal  gratifi- 
cation, they  would  be— 

Souvenir  de  Malmaison, 
Old  Red  Moss, 
Gen.  Dubourg. 

The  latter  is  a  Bourbon  rose,  which,  because  it  is  an  old  variety, 
and  not  very  double,  has  gone  out  of  fashion.  "We,  however,  shall 
cultivate  it  as  long  as  we  enjoy  the  blessing  of  olfactory  nerves ;  for 
it  gives  us,  all  the  season,  an  abundance  of  flowers,  with  the  most 
perfect  rose  scent  that  we  have  ever  yet  found ;  in  fact,  the  true 
attar  of  Rose. 

There  are  few  secrets  in  the  cultivation  of  the  rose  in  this 
climate.  First  of  all,  make  the  soil  deep  ;  and,  if  the  subsoil  is  not 
quite  dry,  let  it  be  well  drained.  Then  remember,  that  what  the 
rose  delights  to  grow  in  is  loam  and  rotten  manure.  Enrich  your 
soil,  therefore,  with  well-decomposed  stable  manure ;  and  if  it  is 
too  sandy,  mix  fresh  loam  from  an  old  pasture  field ;  if  it  is  too 
clayey,  mix  river  or  pit  sand  with  it.  The  most  perfect  specif  c 
stimulus  that  we  have  ever  tried  in  the  culture  of  the  rose,  is 
what  Mr.  Rivers  calls  roasted  turf,  which  is  easily  made  by  paring 
sods  from  the  lane  sides,  and  half  charring  them.  It  acts  like 
magic  upon  the  little  spongioles  of  the  rose  ;  making  new  buds  and 
fine  fresh  foliage  start  out  very  speedily,  and  then  a  succession  of 
superb  and  richly  colored  flowers.  We  commend  it,  especially,  to 
all  those  who  cultivate  roses  in  old  gardens,  where  the  soil  is  more 
or  less  worn  out. 

And  now,  like  the  Persians,  with  the  hope  that  our  fair  read- 
ers "  may  sleep  upon  roses,  and  the  dew  that  falls  may  turn  into 
rose-water,"  we  must  end  thi&  rather  prolix  chapter  upon  roses. 


• 


J 


VI 


A  CHAPTEE  ON  GREEN-HOUSES. 

December,  1848. 

DECEMBER,  here  in  the  north,  is  certainly  a  cold  month.  Yes, 
one  does  not  look  for  primroses  under  the  hedges,  nor  gather 
violets  in  the  valleys,  often,  at  this  season.  One  must  be  content  to 
enjoy  a  bright  sky  over  head,  and  a  frosty  walk  under  foot ;  one 
must  find  pleasure  in  the  anatomy  of  trees,  and  the  grand  outline  of 
hills  and  mountains  half  covered  with  snow.  And  then,  to  be  sure, 
there  are  the  evergreens.  What  a  pleasant  thing  it  is  to  see  how 
bravely  they  stand  their  ground,  and  bid  defiance  even  to  zero; 
especially  those  two  fine  old  veterans,  the  Hemlock  and  the  White 
Pine.  They,  indeed,  smile  defiance  at  all  the  attacks  of  the  Ice 
King.  It  is  not  easy  to  make  a  winter  landscape  dull  or  gloomy 
where  they  stand,  ready  as  they  are  at  all  times  with  such  a  sturdy 
look  of  wholesome  content  in  every  bough. 

That  must  be  an  insipid  climate,  depend  upon  it,  where  there  is 
"  summer  all  the  year  round."  In  an  ideal  point  of  view, — that  is, 
for  angels  and  "beatitudes" — it  is,  nay,  it  must  be,  quite  perfect. 
Their  sensations  never  wear  out.  But  to  us,  poor  mortals,  com- 
pounded as  we  are  of  such  a  moiety  of  clay,  and  alas,  too  many  of 
us  full  of  inconstancy, — always  demanding  variety — always  looking 
for  a  change — wearying,  as  the  angels  do  not,  of  things  which  ought 
to  satisfy  any  reasonable  creature  for  ever ;  no,  even  perpetual  sum- 
mer will  not  do  for  us.  Winter,  keen  and  frosty  winter,  comes  to 
brace  up  our  languid  nerves.    It  acts  like  a  long  night's  sleep,  after 


36 


HORTICULTURE. 


a  day  full  of  exciting  events.  Spring  comes  back  again  to  us  like  a 
positively  new  miracle  !  To  "watch  all  these  black  and  leafless  trees 
suddenly  become  draped  with  green  again,  to  see  the  ice-bound  and 
snow-clad  earth,  now  so  dead  and  cold,  absolutely  bud  and  grow 
warm  with  new  life, — that,  certainly,  is  a  joy  which  never  animates 
the  soul  of  our  fellow-beings  of  the  equator. 

"  But  the  winter,  the  long  winter — without  verdure — without 
foliage — without  flowers — all  so  bleak  and  barren."  Softly,  warm 
weather  friend,  open  this  little  glazed  door,  out  of  the  parlor,  even 
now,  while  the  icicles  hang  from  the  eaves,  and  what  do  you  see  ? 
Truly  a  cheering  and  enlivening  prospect,  we  think ;  a  little  minia- 
ture tropical  scene,  separated  from  the  outer  frost-world  only  by  a 
few  panes  of  glass,  and  yet  as  gay  and  blooming  as  the  valley  of 
Cashmere  in  June.  What  can  be  purer  than  these  pure,  spotless 
double  white, — what  richer  than  these  rich,  parti-colored  Camel- 
lias ?  What  more  delicate  than  these  Heaths,  with  their  little  fairy- 
like bells  ?  What  more  fresh  and  airy  than  these  Azaleas  ?  What 
more  delicious  than  these  Daphnes,  and  Neapolitan  Violets  ?  Why, 
one  can  spend  an  hour  here,  eveiy  day,  in  studying  these  curious 
and  beautiful  strangers — belles  of  other  climes,  that  turn  winter  into 
summer,  to  repay  us  for  a  little  warmth  and  shelter.  Is  there  not 
something  exciting  and  gratifying  in  this  little  spectacle  of  our  tri- 
umph of  art  over  nature  ?  this  holding  out  a  little  garden  of  the 
most  delicate  plants  in  the  very  face  of  winter,  stern  as  he  is,  and 
bidding  him  defiance  to  his  teeth  ?  Truly  yes  ;  and  therefore,  to  one 
who  has  enough  of  vegetable  sympathy  in  his  nature  to  love  flowers 
with  all  his  or  her  heart — to  love  them  enough  to  watch  over  them, 
to  care  for  all  their  wants,  and  to  feel  an  absolute  thrill  of  joy  as 
the  first  delicate  bit  of  color  mounts  into  the  cheek  of  every  blushing 
bud  as  it  is  about  to  burst  open, — to  such  of  our  readers,  we  say,  a 
green-house  is  a  great  comfort  and  consolation ! 

There  are  many  of  our  readers  who  enjoy  the  luxury  of  green- 
houses, hot-houses,  and  conservatories, — large,  beautifully  construct- 
ed, heated  with  hot  water  pipes,  paved  with  marble,  and  filled  with 
every  rare  and  beautiful  exotic  worth  having,  from  the  bfrdlike  air 
plants  of  Guiana  to  the  jewel-like  Fuchsias  of  Mexico.  They  have 
taste,  and  much  "  money  in  their  purses."    They  want  no  advice 


A  CHAPTER  ON  GREEN-HOUSES. 


37 


from  us ;  they  have  only  to  say  "  let  us  have  green-houses,"  and  they 
have  them. 

But  we  have  also  other  readers,  many  thousands  of  them,  who 
have  quite  as  much  natural  taste,  and  not  an  hundredth  part  as  much 
of  the  "needful"  with  which  to  gratify  it.  Yes,  many,  who  look 
upon  a  green-house  as  a  sort  of  crystal  palace,  which  it  requires  a 
great  deal  of  skill  to  construct,  and  untold  wealth  to  pay  for  and 
keep  in  order.  The  little  conversation  that  we  hold  to-day  must  be 
considered  as  addressed  to  this  latter  class  ;  and  we  don't  propose  to 
show  even  them,  how  to  build  a  green-house  for  nothing, — but  how 
it  may  be  built  cheaply,  and  so  simply  that  it  is  not  necessary  to 
send  for  the  architect  of  Trinity  Church  to  give  them  a  plan  for  its 
construction. 

The  idea  that  comes  straightway  into  one's  head,  when  a  green- 
house is  mentioned,  is  something  with  a  half  roof  stuck  against  a 
wall,  and  glazed  all  over, — what  gardeners  call  a  lean-to  or  shed- 
roofed  green-house.  This  is  a  very  good  form  where  economy  alone 
is  to  be  thought  of ;  but  not  in  the  least  will  it  please  the  eye  of 
taste.  We  dislike  it,  because .  there  is  something  incomplete  about 
it ;  it  is,  in  fact,  only  half  a  green-house. 

We  must  have,  then,  the  idea,  in  a  complete  form,  by  having 
the  whole  roof — what  in  garden  architecture  is  called  a  "  span-roof" — 
which,  indeed,  is  nothing  more  than  the  common  form  of  the  roof 
of  a  house,  sloping  both  ways  from  the  ridge  pole  to  the  eaves. 

A  green-house  may  be  of  any  size,  from  ten  to  as  many  hundred 
feet ;  but  let  us  now,  for  the  sake  of  having  something  definite  be- 
fore us,  choose  to  plan  one  15  by  20  feet.  We  will  suppose  it  at 
tached  to  a  cottage  in  the  country,  extending  out  20  feet,  either  on 
the  south,  or  the  east,  or  the  west  side ;  for,  though  the  south  is 
the  best  aspect,  it  will  do  in  this  bright  and  sunny  climate  very  well 
in  either  of  the  others,  provided  it  is  fully  exposed  to  the  sun,  and 
not  concealed  by  trees  at  the  sunny  time  of  day. 

Taking  fig.  2  as  the  ground-plan,  you  will  see  that  by  cutting 
down  the  window  in  the  parlor,  so  as  to  make  a  glazed  door  of  it, 
you  have  the  opening  precisely  where  you  want  it  for  convenience, 
and  exactly  where  there  will  be  a  fine  vista  down  the  walk  as  you 
sit  in  the  parlor.    Now,  by  having  this  house  a  little  wider  than 


434330 


38 


HORTICULTURE. 


usual,  with  an  open  roof,  our  plants  have  the  light  on  all  sides ;  con- 
sequently they  are  never  drawn.  Besides  this,  instead  of  a  single 
walk  down  the  front  of  the  house,  at  the  end  of  which  you  are  forced 
to  wheel  about,  like  a  grenadier,  and  return  ;  you  have  the  agreea- 
ble variety  of  making  the  entire  circuit  of  the  house,  reaching  the 
same  spot  again,  with  something  new  before  you  at  every  step. 
This  walk  is  2£  feet  wide.  The  stage  for  the  tall  plants  is  a  paral- 
lelogram, in  the  middle  of  the  house,  c,  7  feet  wide ;  the  shelf,  which 
borders  the  margin  of  the  house,  d,  is  about  1 8  inches  wide.  This 
will  hold  all  the  small  pots,  the  more  delicate  growing  plants,  the 
winter-flowering  bulbs,  and  all  those  little  favorites  which  of  them- 
selves like  best  to  be  near  the  light,  and  which  one  likes  to  have 
near  the  eye.  It  is  quite  incredible  what  a  number  of  dozen. of 
small  plants  this  single  shelf,  running  nearly  all  round,  will  hold. 


Fig.  2.— Plan  of  a  small  Green-House. 


Now  let  us  take  a  glance  at  the  plar<  of  the  section  of  the  green- 
house, fig.  3,  which  may  be  supposed  10  be  a  slice  down  through 
the  end  of  it.  The  sides  of  the  house  are  8  feet  high.  They  con- 
sist of  a  row  of  sashes  (/),  3  J  feet  high,  placed  just  below  the  plate 
that  supports  the  roof,  and  a  wall,  k,  on  which  these  sashes  stand. 
This  may  be  a  wall  of  brick  or  stone  (if  of  the  former,  8  inches 


A  CHAPTER  ON  GREEN-HOUSE 8. 


39 


thick  is  sufficient) ;  or 
it  may,  when  it  is  to 
be  attached  to  a  wood- 
en dwelling,  be  built 
of  wood— good  cedar 
posts  being  set  as  sup- 
ports 3 1  feet  deep,  and 
lined  with  weather- 
boarding    on  each   

side,  leaving  a  space 

of  12  inches  wide,  to  Fm  3  Section  of  the  Sam6 

be   filled  very  com- 
pactly with  charcoal  dust,  or  dry  tan. 

At  the  farther  end  of  the  house  is  a  door,  i. 

The  roof  may  rise  in  the  middle  so  as  to  be  from  12  to  15  feet 
high  (in  our  plan,  it  is  shown  12  feet).  It  is  wholly  glazed, — the 
sashes  on  either  side  sliding  down  in  the  rafters,  so  as  to  admit  air 
when  necessary.  The  rafters  themselves  to  be  placed  about  4  feet 
apart.  Is  it  not  a  neat  little  green-house — this  structure  that  we 
have  conjured  up  before  you  ?  It  is  particularly  light  and  airy  ;  and 
do  you  not  observe  that  the  great  charm  about  it  is,  that  every  plant 
is  within  reach — always  inviting  attention,  always  ready  to  be  en- 
joyed ?  Truly,  it  is  not  like  those  tall  houses,  with  stages  running 
up  like  stairs,  entirely  out  of  the  reach  of  one's  nose,  arms  or  fingers. 
Do  you  not  see,  also,  that  you  can  very  well  water  and  take  care  of 
every  plant  yourself,  if  you  are  really  fond  of  such  things  ?  Very 
well ;  now  let  us  look  a  little  into  the  way  in  which  we  are  to  keep 
this  little  place  of  pleasure  always  warm  and  genial  for  the  plants 
themselves. 

In  the  first  place,  we  must  inform  our  reader  that  we  are  not  to 
have  either  a  furnace  with  brick  flues,  or  a  boiler  with  hot  water 
pipes.  They  are  both  excellent  things ;  but  we  must  have,  at  pre- 
sent, something  simpler  and  more  economical. 

Every  body,  in  the  northern  States,  very  well  knows  what  an  air- 
tight stove  is ;  a  most  complete  and  capital  little  machine,  whether 
for  wood  or  coal ;  most  easily  managed,  and  giving  us  almost  the 
whole  possible  amount  of  caloric  to  be  got  out  of  hickory  or  anthracite. 


40 


HORTICULTURE. 


Now  we  mean  to  heat  our  little  green-house  with  an  air-tight  stove, 
of  good  size  ;  and  we  mean  to  heat  it,  too,  in  the  latest  and  most 
approved  system — nothing  less  than  what  the  English  call  Polmaise 
— by  which  we  are  able  to  warm  every  part  of  the  house  alike  ;  by 
which  we  shall  be  able  to  create  a  continual  circulation  of  the  warm 
air  from  one  end  of  it,  quite  over  the  plants,  to  the  other ;  and 
which,  no  doubt,  they  will  mistake  for  a  West  India  current  of  air 
every  evening. 

In  order  to  bring  this  about,  we  must  have  an  air-chamber.  This 
also  must  be  below  the  level  of  the  green-house  floor.  It  is  not  im- 
portant under  what  part  it  is  placed  ;  it  may  be  built  wherever  it  is 
most  convenient.  In  our  plan  [fig.  2),  as  there  is  a  cellar  under 
the  parlor,  we  will  put  it  next  the  cellar  wall,  so  that  there  may  be 
a  door  to  enter  it  from  this  cellar.  This  air-chamber  must  be  built 
of  brick,  say  about  7  or  8  feet  square  (as  represented  by  the  dotted 
lines  around  b).  The  wall  of  this  air-chamber  should  be  two  bricks 
thick  at  the  sides  and  one  brick  at  the  ends,  and  aU  smoothly  plas- 
tered on  the  inside.  The  top  should  be  covered  with  large  flagging 
stones ;  and  upon  the  top  of  these,  a  course  of  bricks  should  be  laid, 
which  will  form  part  of  the  floor  of  the  walk  in  the  green-house 
above.  Or,  if  flagging  is  not  to  be  had,  then  cover  the  whole  with 
a  low  arch  of  brick  work. 

In  this  air-chamber  we  will  place  our  air-tight  stove,  the  smoke 
pipe  of  which  must  be  brought  back  into  the  cellar  again,  so  as  to  be 
carried  into  one  of  the  chimney  flues  of  the  house.  There  must  be 
a  large  sheet-iron  or  cast-iron  door  to  the  air-chamber,  to  enable  us 
to  feed  the  fire  in  the  stove  ;  and,  in  the  top  or  covering  of  the  air- 
chamber,  directly  in  the  middle  of  the  walk  (at  1),  must  be  an 
opening  18  inches  in  diameter,  covered  with  a  grating,  or  register. 
Through  this  the  hot  air  will  rise  into  the  house. 

Now,  both  that  we  may  heat  the  house  easily  and  quickly,  and 
a*so  that  we  may  have  that  continual  circulation  of  air  which  is  so 
wholesome  for  the  j)lants,  we  must  also  have  what  is  called  a  "  cold- 
ah  drain  ;  "  it  must  lead  from  that  end  of  the  house  farthest  from 
the  hot-air  chamber,  and  therefore  the  coldest  end,  directly  to  the  bot- 
tom of  the  air-chamber  itself.  We  will  put  the  mouth  of  this  drain  in 
the  middle  of  the  walk  near  the  door,  at  2,  with  a  grating  over  it 


A  CHAPTER  ON  GREEN-HOUSES. 


41 


also.  This  drain  shall  be  simply  a  long  box,  made  of  boards ;  and 
we  will  have  it  1  foot  by  2  feet,  inside.  From  the  mouth,  2,  it  shall 
lead  along,  in  a  straight  line,  just  below  the  level  of  the  floor,  to  B, 
where  it  descends  so  as  to  enter  on  a  level  with  the  floor  of  the  hot- 
air  chamber.  We  will  also  have  a  smaller  box,  or  drain,  for  fresh 
air,  leading  from  the  bottom  of  the  air-chamber  to  the  open  air 
through  the  foundation  wall,  at  4,  to  supply  the  house  with  fresh 
air.  This  air-pipe  should  be  six  inches  in  diameter,  and  there 
should  be  a  slide  in  it  to  enable  us  to  shut  it  up,  whenever  the 
weather  is  too  cold  to  admit  of  its  being  open,  without  lowering  the 
temperature  of  the  house  too  much. 

Now  let  us  suppose  all  is  ready,  and  that  a  fire  is  lighted  in  our 
air-tight  stove.  The  air  in  the  air-chamber  becoming  heated,  it 
rises  rapidly  and  passes  into  the  green-house  through  the  grated 
opening  at  1.  Very  quickly,  then,  in  order  to  supply  the  deficiency 
caused  in  the  air-chamber,  the  air  rushes  through  the  cold-air  drain. 
This  makes  a  current  from  the  coolest  part  of  the  house,  at  2,  towards 
the  air-chamber ;  and,  to  make  good  again  the  lost  air  carried  off 
from  that  end  of  the  house,  the  warm  stream  which  rises  through 
the  opening  at  1,  immediately  flows  over  the  tops  of  the  plants  to- 
wards the  opposite  end  of  the  house,  and,  as  it  becomes  cold  again, 
descends  and  enters  the  mouth  of  the  cold-air  drain,  at  2.  By  taking 
advantage  of  this  simple  and  beautiful  principle,  that  is  to  say  the 
rising  of  warm  air,  we  are  able  in  this  way  to  heat  every  part 
of  the  house  alike,  and  have  a  constant  bland  zephyr  passing  over 
the  plants.* 

It  is  not  easy  to  find  any  thing  simpler  or  more  easily  managed 
than  this  way  of  heating  a  small  green-house.  In  this  latitude,  a 
couple  of  cords  of  wood  or  a  couple  of  tons  of  anthracite,  will  be 
sufficient  for  the  whole  winter ;  for,  it  must  be  remembered,  that  no 
matter  how  cold  the  day,  the  moment  the  sun  shines  there  is  not 
the  slightest  need  of  a  fire ;  the  temperature  will  then  immediately 
begin  to  rise.  Usually  after  bright  days,  which  are  abundant  in 
our  coldest  winter  months,  we  shall  not  need  to  light  a  fire  till  one, 

*  When  a  coal  air-tight  stove  is  used,  there  should  be  a  water  pan  sus- 
pended ;ver  it    F;r  a  wood  air-tight  it  is  not  necessary. 


42 


HORTICULTURE. 


two,  or  sometimes  tbree  hours  after  sunset ;  and  if  our  airtight  is 
one  of  good  size,  and  constructed  as  it  should  be,  so  as  to  maintain 
a  good  fire  for  a  long  time,  our  last  replenishing  ki  the  evening  need 
not  usually  be  later  than  ten  o'clock ;  but  we  must,  in  this  case,  give 
a  full  supply  of  fuel  for  the  night's  consumption. 

Every  sensible  person  will,  of  course,  use  light  outside  shutters, 
for  the  roof  and  side  glass  of  such  a  house  as  this.  We  slide  them 
on  at  sunset,  and  take  them  off  at  sunrise ;  and  by  this  means  we 
not  only  save  one-third  of  our  fuel,  but  keep  up  a  pleasant  green- 
house temperature,  without  cold  draughts  at  night.  It  is  worth 
while  to  remember,  too,  that  in  glazing  the  roof,  the  most  useful 
possible  size  for  the  glass  is  4  by  6  inches,  or,  at  the  largest,  6  by  8 
inches.  The  former  answers  the  purpose  perfectly,  and  is  not  only 
much  less  costly  than  large  glass,  but  is  also  far  less  expensive  to 
keep  in  repair ;  neither  hail  nor  frost  breaking  the  small  panes, 
as  they  do  the  large  ones. 

As  to  the  minor  details,  we  will  have  a  small  cistern  under  the 
floor,  into  which  the  water  from  the  roof  can  be  conveyed  for  water- 
ing the  plants.  Beneath  the  centre  stage  (which  may  be  partly 
concealed  with  lattice  work),  we  may  keep  our  dahlia  roots,  and  a 
dozen  other  sorts  of  half  hardy  plants  for  the  summer  border,  now 
dormant,  and  snugly  packed  quite  out  of  sight. 

We  did  intend,  when  we  sat  down,  to  give  our  novices  a  great  deal 
of  exceedingly  valuable  advice  about  the  sorts  of  plants  that  they  ought 
to  cultivate  in  this  glazed  flower-garden.  But  we  see  that  we  are 
getting  beyond  the  limits  of  a  leader,  and  must  not,  therefore,  weary 
those  of  our  subscribers,  who  take  no  more  interest  in  geraniums 
than  we  do  in  Irish  landlords,  with  too  long  a  parley  on  exotics. 

We  must  have  space  enough,  however,  for  a  word  or  two  more 
to  beginners.  Let  them  take  our  word  for  it — if  they  prefer  an 
abundance  of  beautiful  flowers  to  a  pot-pourri,  of  every  imaginable 
species  that  can  be  grown  under  glass,  they  had  better  confine  them- 
selves to  a  few  really  worthy  and  respectable  genera.  If  they  only 
want  winter-blooming  plants,  then  let  them  take  Camellias  and  Chi- 
nese Azaleas,  as  the  groundwork  of  their  collection,  filling  in  the 
interstices  with  daohnes,  heaths,  sweet-scented  violets,  and  choice 


A  CHAPTER  ON  GREEN-HOUSES. 


43 


bulbs.  For  the  spring,  rely  on  everblooming  roses,*  ana  geraniums. 
If  they  also  wish  to  have  the  green-house  gay  in  summer,  they  must 
shade  it  (or  wash  the  under  side  of  the  roof-glass  with  whiting),  and 
grow  Fuchsias  and  Achimenes.  In  this  way,  they  will  never  be 
without  flowers  in  abundance,  while  their  neighbors,  who  collect 
every  new  thing  to  be  heard  of  under  the  sun,  will  have  more  tall 
stalks  and  meagre  foliage,  than  bright  blossoms  and  odorous  bouquets 
for  their  trouble. 

*  Nothing  is  more  satisfactory  than  those  firie  Noisette  roses,  the  La- 
marque  and  Cloth  of  Gold,  planted  in  an  inside  border,  and  trained  up 
under  the  rafters  of  the  green-house.  In  this  way  they  grow  to  great  size, 
and  give  a  profusion  of  roses. 


VII. 


ON  FEMININE  TASTE  IN  RURAL  AFFAIRS. 

April,  1849. 

WHAT  a  very  little  fact  sometimes  betrays  the  national  charac- 
ter ;  and  what  an  odd  thing  this  national  character  is  !  Look 
at  a  Frenchman.  He  eats,  talks,  lives  in  public.  He  is  only  happy 
when  he  has  spectators.  In  town,  on  the  boulevards,  in  the  cafe,  at 
places  of  public  amusement,  he  is  all  enjoyment.  But  in  the 
country — ah,  there  he  never  goes  willingly  ;  or  else,  he  only  goes 
to  sentimentalize,  or  to  entertain  his  town  friends.  Even  the  natural 
born  country  people  seem  to  find  nature  and  solitude  ennuyant, 
and  so  collect  in  little  villages  to  keep  each  other  in  spirits  !  The 
Frenchman  eats  and  sleeps  almost  any  where ;  but  he  is  never  "  at 
home  but  when  he  is  abroad." 

Look,  on  the  other  hand,  at  John  Bull.  He  only  lives  what  he 
feels  to  be  a  rational  life,  when  he  lives  in  the  country.  His  country 
place  is  to  him.  a  little  Juan  Fernandez  island  ;  it  contains  his  own 
family,  his  own  castle,  every  thing  that  belongs  to  him.  He  hates 
the  smoke  of  town  ;  he  takes  root  in  the  soil.  His  horses,  his  dogs, 
his  trees,  are  not  separate  existences ;  they  are  parts  of  himself. 
He  is  social  with  a  reservation.  Nature  is  nearer  akin  to  him  than 
strange  men.  His  dogs  are  truly  attached  to  him ;  he  doubts  if  his 
fellows  are.  People  often  play  the  hypocrite;  but  the  trees  in 
his  park  never  deceive  him.  Home  is  to  him  the  next  best  place 
to  heaven. 

And  only  a  little  narrow  strait  of  water  divides  these  two 
nations ! 


ON  FEMININE  TASTE  IN  RURAL  AFFAIRS. 


45 


Shall  we  ever  have  a  distinct  national  character?  Will  a 
country,  which  is  settled  by  every  people  of  the  old  world, — a  dozen 
nations,  all  as  distinct  as  the  French  and  the  English, — ever  crys- 
tallize into  a  symmetrical  form — something  distinct  and  homoge- 
neous ?    And  what  will  that  national  character  be  ? 

Certainly  no  one,  who  looks  at  our  comparative  isolation — at 
the  broad  ocean  that  separates  us  from  such  external  influences — 
at  the  mighty  internal  forces  of  new  government  and  new  circum- 
stances, which  continually  act  upon  us, — and,  above  all,  at  the 
mighty  vital  force  of  the  Yankee  Constitution,  which  every  year 
swallows  hundreds  of  thousands  of  foreigners,  and  digests  them  all ; 
no  one  can  look  reflectingly  on  all  this,  and  not  see  that  there  is 
a  national  type,  which  will  prevail  over  all  the  complexity,  which 
various  origin,  foreign  manners,  and  different  religions  bring  to  our 
shores. 

The  English  are,  perhaps,  the  most  distinct  of  civilized  nations, 
in  their  nationality.  But  they  had  almost  as  mixed  an  origin  as 
ourselves, — Anglo-Saxon,  Celts,  Roman,  Danish,  Norman ;  all  these 
apparently  discordant  elements,  were  fused  so  successfully  into  a 
great  and  united  people. 

That  a  hundred  years  hence  will  find  us  quite  as  distinct  and 
quite  as  developed,  in  our  national  character,  we  cannot  doubt. 
What  that  character  will  be,  in  all  its  phases,  no  one  at  present  can 
precisely  say ;  but  that  the  French  and  English  elements  will  largely 
influence  it  in  its  growth,  and  yet,  that  in  morals,  in  feeling,  and  in 
heart,  we  shall  be  entirely  distinct  from  either  of  those  nations,  is  as 
clear  to  us  as  a  summer  noon. 

We  are  not  going  into  a  profound  philosophical  dissertation  on 
the  political  or  the  social  side  of  national  character.  We  want  to 
touch  very  slightly  on  a  curious  little  point  that  interests  us ;  one 
that  political  philosophers  would  think  quite  beneath  them ;  one 
that  moralists  would  not  trouble  themselves  about ;  and  one  that 
wo  are  very  much  afraid  nobody  else  will  think  worth  notice  at  all ; 
and  therefore  we  shall  set  about  it  directly. 

What  is  the  reason  American  ladies  don't  love  to  work  in  their 
gardens ? 

It  is  of  no  use  whatever,  that  some  fifty  or  a  hundred  of  our  fair 


46 


HORTICULTURE. 


readers  say,  "  we  do."  We  have  carefully  studied  the  matter,  until 
it  has  become  a  fact  past  all  contradiction.  They  may  love  to 
"  potter "  a  little.  Three  or  four  times  in  the  spring  they  take  a 
fancy  to  examine  the  color  of  the  soil  a  few  inches  below  the  sur- 
face ;  they  sow  some  China  Asters,  and  plant  a  few  Dahlias,  and  it 
is  all  over.  Love  flowers,  with  all  their  hearts,  they  certainly  do. 
Few  things  are  more  enchanting  to  them  than  a  fine  garden ;  and 
bouquets  on  their  centre  tables  are  positive  necessities,  with  every 
lady,  from  Maine  to  the  Rio  Grande. 

Now,  we  certainly  have  all  the  love  of  nature  of  our  English 
forefathers..  We  love  the  countiy;  and  a  large  part  of  the  mil- 
lions, earned  every  year  by  our  enterprise,  is  spent  in  creating  and 
embellishing  country  homes.  But,  on  the  contrary,  our  wives  and 
daughters  only  love  gardens  as  the  French  love  them — for  the 
results.  They  love  to  walk  through  them  ;  fhey  enjoy  the  beauty 
and  perfume  of  their  products,  but  only  as  amateurs.  They  know 
no  more  of  that  intense  enjoyment  of  her  who  plans,  creates,  and 
daily  watches  the  growth  of  those  gardens  or  flowers, — no  more  of 
that  absolute,  living  enjoyment,  which  the  English  have  in  out-of- 
door  pursuits,  than  a  mere  amateur,  who  goes  through  a  fine  gal- 
lery of  pictures,  knows  of  the  intensified  emotions  which  the  painters 
of  those  pictures  experienced  in  i'heir  souls,  when  they  gazed  on  the 
gradual  growth  and  perfected  splendor  of  their  finest  master-pieces. 

As  it  is  plain,  from  our  love  of  the  country,  that  we  are  not  French 
at  heart,  this  manifestation  that  we  complain  of,  must  come  from 
our  natural  tendency  to  copy  the  social  manners  of  the  most 
polished  nation  in  the  world.  And  it  is  indeed  quite  wonderful 
how,  being  scarcely  in  the  least  affected  by  the  morale,  we  still  bor- 
row almost  instinctively,  and  entirely  without  being  aware  of  it,  so 
much  from  la  Belle  France.  That  our  dress,  mode  of  life,  and  in- 
tercourse, is  largely  tinged  with  French  taste,  every  traveller  notices. 
But  it  goes  farther.  Even  the  plans  of  our  houses  become  more  and 
more  decidedly  French.  We  have  had  occasion,  lately,  to  make 
considerable  explorations  in  the  domestic  architecture  of  France  and 
England,  and  we  have  noticed  some  striking  national  peculiarities. 
One  of  these  relates  to  the  connection  of  the  principal  apartments. 
In  a  French  house,  the  beau  ideal  is  to  have  every  thing  ensuite  ; 


ON  FEMININE  TASTE  IN  RURAL  AFFAIRS. 


47 


all  the  rooms  open  into  each  other ;  or,  at  least,  as  many  of  the 
largest  as  will  produce  a  fine  effect.  In  an  English  house,  every 
room  is  complete  in  itself.  It  may  be  very  large,  and  very  grand, 
but  it  is  all  the  worse  for  being  connected  with  any  other  room ;  for 
that  destroys  the  privacy  which  an  Englishman  so  much  loves. 

Does  any  one,  familiar  with  the  progress  of  building  in  the 
United  States  for  the  last  ten  years,  desire  to  be  told  which  mode 
we  have  followed?  And  yet,  there  are  veiy  few  who  are  aware 
that  our  love  of  folding-doors,  and  suites  of  apartments,  is  essen- 
tially French. 

Now  our  national  taste  in  gardening  and  out-door  employments, 
is  just  in  the  process  of  formation.  Honestly  and  ardently  be- 
lieving that  the  loveliest  and  best  women  in  the  world  are  those  of 
our  own  country,  we  cannot  think  of  then  losing  so  much  of  their 
own  and  nature's  bloom,  as  only  to  enjoy  their  gardens  by  the 
results,  like  the  French,  rather  than  through  the  development,  like 
the  English.  We  would  gladly  show  them  how  much  they  lose. 
We  would  convince  them,  that  only  to  pluck  the  full-blown  flower, 
is  like  a  first  introduction  to  it,  compared  with  the  life-long  friend- 
ship of  its  mistress,  who  has  nursed  it  from  its  first  two  leaves ;  and 
that  the  real  zest  of  our  enjoyment  of  nature,  even  in  a  garden,  lies 
in  our  looking  at  her,  not  like  a  spectator  who  admires,  but  like  a 
dear  and  intimate  friend,  to  whom,  after  long  intimacy,  she  reveals 
sweets  wholly  hidden  from  those  who  only  come  to  her  in  full  drees, 
and  in  the  attitude  of  formal  visitors. 

If  any  one  wishes  to  know  how  completely  and  intensely  Eng- 
lish women  enter  into  the  spirit  of  gardening,  he  has  only  to  watch 
the  wife  of  the  most  humble  artisan  who  settles  in  any  of  our  cities. 
She  not  only  has  a  pot  of  flowers — her  back-yard  is  a  perfect  curi- 
osity-shop of  botanical  rarities.  She  is  never  done  with  training, 
and  watering,  and  caring  for  them.  And  truly,  they  reward  her 
well ;  for  who  ever  saw  such  large  geraniums,  such  fresh  daisies, 
such  ruddy  roses  !  Comparing  them  with  the  neglected  and  weak 
specimens  in  the  garden  of  her  neighbor,  one  might  be  tempted  to 
believe  that  they  had  been  magnetized  by  the  charm  of  personal 
fondness  of  their  mistress,  into  a  life  and  beauty  not  common  to 
other  plants. 


48 


HORTICULTURE. 


Mr.  Colman,  in  his  European  Tour,  seems  to  have  been  struck 
by  this  trait,  and  gave  so  capital  a  portrait  of  rural  accomplish- 
ments in  a  lady  of  rank  he  had  the  good  fortune  to  meet,  that  we 
cannot  resist  the  temptation  of  turning  the  picture  to  the  light  once 
more : 

"  I  had  no  sooner,  then,  entered  the  house,  where  my  visit  had  been 
expected,  than  I  was  met  with  an  unaffected  cordiality,  which  at  once 
made  me  at  home.  In  the  midst  of  gilded  halls,  and  hosts  of  liveried 
servants,  of  dazzling  lamps  and  glittering  mirrors,  redoubling  the  high- 
est triumphs  of  art  and  of  taste ;  in  the  midst  of  books,  and  statues, 
and  pictures,  and  all  the  elegancies  and  refinements  of  luxury ;  in  the 
midst  of  titles,  and  dignitaries,  and  ranks  allied  to  regal  grandeur, — 
there  was  one  object  which  transcended  and  eclipsed  them  all,  and 
showed  how  much  the  nobility  of  character  surpassed  the  nobility  of 
rank,  the  beauty  of  refined  and  simple  manners  all  the  adornments  of 
art,  the  scintillations  of  the  soul,  beaming  from  the  eyes,  the  purest 
gems  that  ever  glittered  in  a  princely  diadem.  In  person,  in  education 
and  improvement,  in  quickness  of  perception,  in  facility  and  elegance  of 
expression,  in  accomplishments  and  taste,  in  a  frankness  and  gentleness 
of  manner,  tempered  by  a  modesty  which  courted  confidence  and  in- 
spired respect,  and  in  a  high  moral  tone  and  sentiment,  which,  like  a 
bright  halo,  seemed  to  encircle  the  whole  person, — I  confess  the  fictions 
of  poetry  became  substantial,  and  the  beau  ideal  of  my  youthful  imagi- 
nation was  realized. 

"  In  the  morning  I  first  met  her  at  prayers ;  for,  to  the  honor  of 
England,  there  is  scarcely  a  family,  among  the  hundreds  whose  hospi- 
tality I  have  shared,  where  the  duties  of  the  day  are  not  preceded  by 
family  worship ;  and  the  master  and  the  servant,  the  parent  and  the 
child,  the  teacher  and  the  taught,  the  friend  and  the  stranger,  come  to- 
gether to  recognize  and  strengthen  the  sense  of  their  common  equality, 
in  the  presence  of  their  common  Father,  and  to  acknowledge  their  equal 
dependence  upon  his  care  and  mercy.  She  was  then  kind  enough  to 
tell  me,  after  her  morning's  arrangements,  she  claimed  me  for  the  day. 
She  first  showed  me  her  children,  whom,  like  the  Roman  mother,  she 
deemed  her  brightest  jewels,  and  arranged  their  studies  and  occupations 
for  the  day.  She  then  took  me  two  or  three  miles  on  foot,  to  visit  a 
sick  neighbor ;  and,  while  performing  this  act  of  kindness,  left  me  to 
visit  some  of  the  cottages  upon  the  estate,  whose  inmates  I  found  loud 
in  the  praises  of  her  kindness  and  benefactions.    Our  next  excursion 


ON  FEMININE  TASTE  IN  RURAL  AFFAIRS. 


49 


was  to  see  some  of  the  finest,  and  largest,  and  most  aged  trees  in  the 
park,  the  size  of  which  was  truly  magnificent ;  and  I  sympathized  in 
the  veneration  which  she  expressed  for  them,  which  was  like  that  with 
which  one  recalls  the  illustrious  memory  of  a  remote  progenitor.  Our 
next  visit  was  to  the  green-houses  and  gardens ;  and  she  explained  to 
me  the  mode  adopted  there,  of  managing  the  most  delicate  plants,  and 
of  cultivating,  in  the  most  economical  and  successful  manner,  the  fruits 
of  a  warmer  region.  From  the  garden  we  proceeded  to  the  cultivated 
fields ;  and  she  informed  me  of  the  system  of  husbandry  pursued  on 
the  estate,  the  rotation  of  crops,  the  management  and  application  of 
manures,  the  amount  of  seed  sown,  the  ordinary  yield,  and  the  appro- 
priation of  the  produce,  with  a  perspicuous  detail  of  the  expenses  and 
results.  She  then  undertook  to  show  me  the  yards  and  offices,  the 
byres,  the  feeding  stalls,  the  plans  for  saving,  increasing,  and  managing 
the  manure  ;  the  cattle  for  feeding,  for  breeding,  the  milking  stock,  the 
piggery,  the  poultry-yard,  the  stables,  the  harness-rooms,  the  implement- 
rooms,  the  dairy.  She  explained  to  me  the  process  of  making  the  dif- 
ferent kinds  of  cheese,  and  the  general  management  of  the  milk,  and 
the  mode  of  feeding  the  stock  ;  and  then,  conducting  me  into  the  bailiff's 
house,  she  exhibited  to  me  the  Farm  Journal,  and  the  whole  systematic 
mode  of  keeping  the  accounts  and  making  the  returns,  with  which  she 
seemed  as  familiar  as  if  they  were  the  accounts  of  her  own  wardrobe. 
This  did  not  finish  our  grand  tour ;  for,  on  my  return,  she  admitted  me 
into  her  boudoir,  and  showed  me  the  secrets  of  her  own  admirable 
housewifery,  in  the  exact  accounts  which  she  kept  of  every  thing  con- 
nected with  the  dairy,  the  market,  the  table,  and  the  drawing-room,  and 
the  servants'  hall.  All  this  was  done  with  a  simplicity  and  a  frank- 
ness, which  showed  an  absence  of  all  consciousness  of  any  extraordi- 
nary merit  in  her  own  department,  and  which  evidently  sprang  solely 
from  a  kind  desire  to  gratify  a  curiosity  on  my  part,  which,  I  hope,  un- 
der such  circumstances,  was  not  unreasonable. 

"A  short  hour  after  this  brought  us  into  another  relation  ;  for  the 
dinner  bell  summoned  us,  and  this  same  lady  was  found  presiding  over 
a  brilliant  circle  of  the  highest  rank  and  fashion,  with  an  ease,  elegance, 
wit,  intelligence,  and  good  humor,  with  a  kind  attention  to  every  one's 
wants,  and  an  unaffected  concern  for  everyone's  comfort,  which  would  lead 
one  to  suppose  that  this  was  her  only  and  her  peculiar  sphere.  Now  I 
will  not  say  how  many  mud-puddles  we  had  waded  through,  and  how 
many  manure  heaps  we  had  crossed,  and  what  places  we  had  explored, 
and  how  every  farming  topic  was  discussed ;  but  I  will  say  that  she 
pursued  her  object  without  any  of  that  fastidiousness  and  affected  deli- 
4 


50 


HORTICULTURE. 


cacy,  which  pass  with  some  persons  for  refinement,  but  which,  in  many- 
cases,  indicate  a  weak,  if  not  a  corrupt  mind.       *       *       *  * 

"  Now  I  do  not  say  that  the  lady  to  whom  I  have  referred  was  her- 
self the  manager  of  the  farm  ;  that  rested  entirely  with  her  husband  ; 
but  I  have  intended  simply  to  show  how  gratifying  to  him  must  have 
been  the  lively  interest  and  sympathy  which  she  took  in  concerns  which 
necessarily  so  much  engaged  his  time  and  attention ;  and  how  the  coun- 
try would  be  divested  of  that  dulness  and  ennui,  so  often  complained 
of  as  inseparable  from  it,  when  a  cordial  and  practical  interest  is  taken 
in  the  concerns  which  belong  to  rural  life.  I  meant  also  to  show — and 
this  and  many  other  examples,  which  have  come  under  my  observation, 
emphatically  do  show — that  an  interest  in,  and  familiarity  with,  even 
the  most  humble  occupations  of  agricultural  life,  are  not  inconsistent 
with  the  highest  refinements  of  taste,  the  most  improved  cultivation  of 
the  mind,  and  elegance,  and  dignity  of  manners,  unsurpassed  in  the 
highest  circles  of  society." 

This  picture  is  thoroughly  English  ;  and  who  do  our  readers 
suppose  this  lady  was  ?  Mr.  Colman  puts  his  finger  on  his  lips,  and 
declares  that  however  much  he  may  be  questioned  by  his  fair  readers 
at  home,  he  will  make  no  disclosures.  But  other  people  recognize 
the  portrait ;  and  we  understand  it  is  that  of  the  Duchess  of  Port- 
land. 

Now,  as  a  contrast  to  this,  here  is  a  little  fragment — a  mere  bit 
— but  enough  to  show  the  French  feeling  about  country  life.  It  is 
from  one  of  Madame  de  Sevigne's  charming  letters;  and,  fond  of 
society  as  she  was,  she  certainly  had  as  much  of  love  of  the  coun- 
try as  belongs  to  her  class  and  sex  on  her  side  of  the  channel.  It  is 
part  of  a  letter  written  from  her  country  home.  She  is  writing  to 
her  daughter,  and  speaking  of  an  expected  visit  from  one  of  her 
friends  : 

"  It  follows  that,  after  I  have  been  to  see  her,  she  will  come  to  see 
me,  when,  of  course,  I  shall  wish  her  to  find  my  garden  in  good  order ; 
my  walks  in  good  order — those  fine  walks,  of  which  you  are  so  fond. 
Attend  also,  if  you  please,  to  a  little  suggestion  en  passant.  You  are 
aware  that  haymaking  is  going  forward.  Well,  I  have  no  haymakers. 
I  send  into  the  neighboring  fields  to  press  them  into  my  service  ;  there 
are  none  to  be  found ;  and  so  all  my  own  people  are  summoned  to  make 


ON  FEMININE  TASTE  IN  RORAL  AFFAIRS. 


51 


nay  instead.  But  do  you  know  what  haymaking  is  ?  I  will  tell  you. 
Haymaking  is  the  prettiest  thing  in  the  world.  You  play  at  turning 
the  grass  over  in  a  meadow  ;  and  as  soon  as  you  know  that,  you 
know  how  to  make  hay." 

Is  it  not  capital  ?  We  italicize  her  description  of  haymaking, 
it  is  so  Frangaise,  and  so  totally  unlike  the  account  that  the  Duchess 
would  have  given  Mr.  Colman.  Her  garden,  too  ;  she  wanted  to 
have  it  put  in  order  before  her  friend  arrived.  She  would  have 
shown  it,  not  as  an  English  woman  would  have  done,  to  excite  an 
interest  in  its  rare  and  beautiful  ■  plants,  and  the  perfection  to  which 
they  had  grown  under  her  care,  but  that  it  might  give  her  friend  a 
pleasant  promenade. 

Now  we  have  not  the  least  desire,  that  American  wives  and 
daughters  should  have  any  thing  to  do  with  the  rough  toil  of  the 
farm  or  the  garden,  beyond  their  own  household  province.  We  de- 
light in  the  chivalry  which  pervades  this  whole  country,  in  regard 
to  the  female  character,  and  which  even  foreigners  have  remarked 
as  one  of  the  strongest  national  characteristics.*  But  we  would 
gladly  have  them  seize  on  that  happy  medium,  between  the  English 
passion  for  every  thing  out  of  doors,  and  the  French  taste  for  nothing 
beyond  the  drawing-room.  Every  thing  which  relates  to  the  gar- 
den, the  lawn,  the  pleasure-grounds,  should  claim  their  immediate 
interest.  And  this,  not  merely  to  walk  out  occasionally  and  enjoy 
it ;  but  to  know  it  by  heart ;  to  do  it,  or  see  it  all  done  ;  to  know 

*  M.  Chevalier,  one  of  the  most  intelligent  of  recent  French  travellers, 
says,  in  his  work  on  this  country — "  Not  only  does  the  American  mechanic 
and  farmer  relieve,  as  much  as  possible,  his  wife  from  all  severe  labor,  all 
disagreeable  employments,  but  there  is  also,  in  relation  to  them,  and  to 
women  in  general,  a  disposition  to  oblige,  that  is  unknown  among  us,  even 
in  men  who  pique  themselves  upon  cultivation  of  mind  and  literary  educa- 
tion." ******* 

"  We  buy  our  wives  with  our  fortunes,  or  we  sell  ourselves  to  them  for 
their  dowries.  The  American  chooses  her,  or  rather  he  offers  himself  to  her 
for  her  beauty,  her  intelligence,  and  the  qualities  of  her  heart ;  it  is  the 
only  dowry  which  he  seeks.  Thus,  while  we  make  of  that  which  is  most 
sacred  a  matter  of  business,  these  traders  affect  a  delicacy,  and  an  elevation 
of  sentiment,  which  would  have  done  honor  to  the  most  perfect  models  of 
chivalry." 


62 


HORTICULTURE. 


the  history  of  any  plant,  shrub,  or  tree,  from  the  time  it  was  so 
small  as  to  be  invisible  to  all  but  their  eyes,  to  the  time  when  every 
passer-by  stops  to  admire  and  enjoy  it ;  to  live,  in  short,  not  only 
the  in-door  but  the  out-of-door  life  of  a  true  woman  in  the  country. 
Every  lady  may  not  be  "born  to  love  pigs  and  chickens  "  (though 
that  is  a  good  thing  to  be  bom  to) ;  but,  depend  upon  it,  she  has 
been  cut  off  by  her  mother  nature  with  less  than  a  shilling's  patri- 
mony, if  she  does  not  love  trees,  flowers,  gardens,  and  nature,  as  if 
they  were  all  part  of  herself. 

We  half  suspect,  if  the  truth  must  be  told,  that  there  is  a  little 
affectation  or  coquetry  among  some  of  our  fair  readers,  in  this  want 
of  hearty  interest  in  rural  occupation.  "We  have  noticed  that  it  is 
precisely  those  who  have  the  smallest  gardens,  and,  therefore,  who 
ought  most  naturally  to  wish  to  take  the  greatest  interest  in  their 
culture  themselves, — it  is  precisely  those  who  depend  entirely  upon 
their  gardener.  They  rest  with  such  entire  faith  on  the  chivalry  of 
our  sex,  that  they  gladly  permit  every  thing  to  be  done  for  them, 
and  thus  lose  the  greatest  charm  which  their  garden  could  give — 
that  of  a  delightful  personal  intimacy. 

Almost  all  the  really  enthusiastic  and  energetic  lady  gardeners 
that  we  have  the  pleasure  of  knowing,  belong  to  the  wealthiest  class 
in  this  country.  We  have  a  neighbor  on  the  Hudson,  for  in- 
stance, whose  pleasure-grounds  cover  many  acres,  whose  flower- 
garden  is  a  miracle  of  beauty,  and  who  keeps  six  gardeners  at  work 
all  the  season.  But  there  is  never  a  tree  transplanted  that  she  does 
not  see  its  roots  carefully  handled ;  not  a  walk  laid  out  that  she  does 
not  mark  its  curves  ;  not  a  parterre  arranged  that  she  does  not  direct 
its  colors  and  grouping,  and  even  assist  in  planting  it.  No  matter 
what  guests  enjoy  her  hospitality,  several  hours  every  day  are  thus 
spent  in  out-of-door  employment ;  and  from  the  zeal  and  enthusiasm 
with  which  she  always  talks  of  every  thing  relating  to  her  country 
life,  we  do  not  doubt  that  she  is  far  more  rationally  happy  now, 
than  when  she  received  the  homage  of  a  circle  of  admirers  at  one 
of  the  most  brilliant  of  foreign  courts. 

On  the  table  before  us,  lies  a  letter  from  a  lady  of  fortune  in 
Philadelphia,  whose  sincere  and  hearty  enthusiasm  in  country  life 
always  delights  us.    She  is  one  of  those  beings  who  animate  every 


ON  FEMININE  TASTE  IN  RURAL  AFFAIRS. 


53 


thing  she  touches,  and  would  make  a  heart  beat  in  a  granite  rock, 
if  it  had  not  the  stubbornness  of  all  "  facts  before  the  flood."  She 
is  in  a  dilemma  now  about  the  precise  uses  of  lime  (which  has  stag- 
gered many,  an  old  cultivator,  by  the  way),  and  tells  the  story  of  her 
doubts  with  an  earnest  directness  and  eloquence  that  one  seeks  for  in 
vain  in  the  essays  of  our  male  chemi co-horticultural  correspondents. 
We  are  quite  sure  that  there  will  be  a  meaning  in  every  fruit  and 
flower  which  this  lady  plucks  from  the  garden,  of  which  our  fair 
friends,  who  are  the  disciples  of  the  Sevigne  school,  have  not  the 
feeblest  conception. 

There  are,  also,  we  fear,  those  who  fancy  that  there  is  something 
rustic,  unfeminine  and  unrefined,  about  an  interest  in  country  out-of- 
door  matters.  Would  we  could  present  to  them  a  picture  which 
rises  in  our  memory,  at  this  moment,  as  the  finest  of  all  possible  de- 
nials to  such  a  theory.  In  the  midst  of  the  richest  agricultural  region 
of  the  northern  States,  lives  a  lady — a  young,  unmarried  lady ; 
mistress  of  herself ;  of  some  thousands  of  acres  of  the  finest  lands ; 
and  a  mansion  which  is  almost  the  ideal  of  taste  and  refinement. 
Very  well.  Does  this  lady  sit  in  her  drawing-room  all  day,  to  re- 
ceive her  visitors  ?  By  no  means.  You  will  find  her,  in  the  morn- 
ing, either  on  horseback  or  driving  a  light  carriage  with  a  pair  of 
spirited  horses.  She  explores  every  corner  of  the  estate  ;  she  visits 
her  tenants,  examines  the  crops,  projects  improvements,  directs  re- 
pairs, and  is  thoroughly  mistress  of  her  whole  demesne.  Her  man- 
sion opens  into  the  most  exquisite  garden  of  flowers  and  fruits,  every 
one  of  which  she  knows  by  heart.  And  yet  this  lady,  so  energetic 
and  spirited  in  her  enjoyment  and  management  in  out-of-door  mat- 
ters, is,  in  the  drawing-room,  the  most  gentle,  the  most  retiring,  the 
most  refined  of  her  sex. 

A  word  or  two  more,  and  upon  what  ought  to  be  the  most  im- 
portant argument  of  all.  Exercise,  fresh  air,  health, — are  they 
not  almost  synonymous  ?  The  exquisite  bloom  on  the  cheeks  of 
American  girls,  fades,  in  the  matron,  much  sooner  here  than  in  Eng- 
land,— not  alone  because  of  the  softness  of  the  English  climate,  as 
many  suppose.  It  is  because  exercise,  so  necessary  to  the  mainte- 
nance of  health,  is  so  little  a  matter  of  habit  and  education  here,  and 
so  largely  insisted  upon  in  England ;  and  it  is  because  exercise,  when 


54 


HORTICULTURE. 


taken  here  at  all,  is  taken  too  often  as  a  matter  of  duty ;  that  it  is 
then  only  a  lifeless  duty,  and  has  no  soul  in  it ;  while  the  English 
woman,  who  takes  a  living  interest  in  her  rural  employments,  in- 
hales new  life  in  eveiy  day's  occupation,  and  plants  perpetual  roses 
in  her  cheeks,  by  the  mere  act  of  planting  them  in  her  garden. 

"  But,  Mr.  Downing,  think  of  the  hot  sun  in  this  country,  and 
our  complexions !  " 

Yes,  yes,  we  know  it.  But  get  up  an  hour  earlier,  fair  reader ; 
put  on  your  broadest  sun-bonnet,  and  your  stoutest  pair  of  gloves, 
and  try  the  problem  of  health,  enjoyment  and  beauty,  before  the 
sun  gets  too  ardent.  A  great  deal  may  be  done  in  this  way ;  and 
after  a  while;  if  your  heart  is  in  the  right  place  for  ruralities,  you 
will  find  the  occupation  so  fascinating  that  you  will  gradually  find 
yourself  able  to  enjoy  keenly  what  was  at  first  only  a  very  irksome 
sort  of  duty. 


m 


VIII. 

ECONOMY  IN  GARDENING. 

May,  1849. 

MR.  COLMAN,  in  his  Agricultural  Tour,  remarks,  that  his  ob- 
servations abroad  convinced  him  that  the  Americans  are  the 
most  extravagant  people  in  the  world  ;  and  the  truth  of  the  remark 
is  corroborated  by  the  experience  of  every  sensible  traveller  that  re- 
turns from  Europe.  The  much  greater  facility  of  getting  money 
here,  makes  us  more  regardless  of  system  in  its  expenditure ;  and 
the  income  of  many  an  estate  abroad,  amounting  to  twenty  thou- 
sand dollars,  is  expended  with  an  exactness,  and  nicety  of  calcula- 
tion, that  would  astonish  persons  in  this  country,  who  have  only  an 
income  of  twenty  hundred  dollars.  Abroad,  it  is  the  study  of 
those  who  have,  how  to  save  ;  or,  in  the  case  of  spending,  how  to 
get  the  most  for  their  money.  At  home,  it  seems  to  be  the  desire 
of  every  body  to  get — and,  having  obtained  wealth,  to  expend  it  in 
the  most  lavish  and  careless  manner. 

There  are,  again,  many  who  wish  to  be  economical  in  their  dis- 
bursements, but  find,  in  a  country  where  labor  is  one  of  the  dearest 
of  commodities,  that  every  thing  which  is  attained  by  the  expendi- 
ture of  labor,  costs  so  much  more  than  they  had  supposed,  that 
moderate  "  improvements" — as  we  call  all  kinds  of  building  and 
gardening  in  this  country — in  a  short  time  consume  a  handsome 
competence. 

The  fact,  that  in  no  country  is  labor  better  paid  for  than  in  ours,  • 
is  one  that  has  much  to  do  with  the  success  and  progress  of  the 
country  itself.    Where  the  day-laborer  is  so  poorly  paid,  that  he 


56 


HORTICULTURE. 


must,  of  necessity,  always  be  a  day-laborer,  it  follows,  inevitably, 
tbat  tbe  condition  of  the  largest  number  of  human  beings  in  the 
State  must  remain  nearly  stationary.  On  the  other  hand,  in  a  com- 
munity where  the  industrious,  prudent,  and  intelligent  day-laborer 
can  certainly  rise  to  a  more  independent  position,  it  is  equally  evi- 
dent that  the  improvement  of  national  character,  and  the  increase  of 
wealth,  must  go  on  rapidly  together. 

But,  just  in  proportion  to  the  ease  with  which  men  accumulate 
wealth,  will  they  desire  to  spend  it ;  and,  in  spending  it,  to  obtain 
the  utmost  satisfaction  which  it  can  produce.  Among  the  most 
rational  modes  of  doing  this,  in  the  country,  are  building  and  gar- 
dening ;  arid  hence,  every  year,  we  find  a  greater  number  of  our 
citizens  endeavoring  to  realize  the  pleasures  of  country  life. 

Now  building  is  sufficiently  cheap  with  us.  A  man  may  build 
a  cottage  ornie  for  a  few  hundred  dollars,  which  abroad  would  cost 
a  few  thousands.  But  the  moment  he  touches  a  spade  to  the 
ground,  to  plant  a  tree,  or  to  level  a  hillock,  that  moment  his  farm 
is  taxed  three  or  four  times  as  heavily  as  in  Europe ;  and  as  he 
builds  in  a  year,  but  "  gardens"  all  his  life,  it  is  evident  that  his  out- 
of-door  expenses  must  be  systematized,  or  economized,  or  he  will  find 
his  income  greatly  the  loser  by  it.  Many  a  citizen,  who  has  settled 
in  the  country  with  the  greatest  enthusiasm,  has  gone  back  to  town 
in  disgust  at  the  unsuspected  cost  of  country  pleasures. 

And  yet,  there  are  ways  in  which  economy  and  satisfactory  re- 
sults may  be  combined  in  country  life.  There  are  always  two  ways 
of  arriving  at  a  result ;  and,  in  some  cases,  that  mode  least  usually 
pursued  is  the  better  and  more  satisfactory  one. 

The  price  of  the  cheapest  labor  in  the  country  generally,  aver- 
ages 80  cents  to  $1  per  day.  Now  we  have  no  wish  whatever  to 
lower  the  price  of  labor  ;  we  would  rather  feel  that,  by  and  by,  we 
could  afford  to  pay  even  more.  But  we  wish  either  to  avoid  un- 
necessary expenditure  for  labor  in  producing  a  certain  result,  or  to 
arrive  at  some  mode  of  insuring  that  the  dollar  a  day,  paid  for  labor, 
shall  be  fairly  and  well  earned. 

Four-fifths  of  all  the  gardening  labor  performed  in  the  eastern 
and  middle  States  is  performed  by  Irish  emigrants.  Always  accus- 
tomed to  something  of  oppression  on  the  part  of  landlords  and  em 


ECONOMY  IN  GARDENING. 


57 


plovers,  in  their  own  country,  it  is  not  surprising  that  their  old 
habits  stick  close  to  them  here ;  and  as  a  class,  they  require  far 
more  watching  to  get  a  fair  day's  labor  from  them  than  many  of 
our  own  people.  On  the  other  hand,  there  is  no  workman  who  is 
more  stimulated  by  the  consciousness  of  working  on  his  own  ac- 
count than  an  Irishman.  He  will  work  stoutly  and  faithfully,  from 
early  to  late,  to  accomplish  a  "  job"  of  his  own  seeking,  or  which 
he  has  fairly  contracted  for,  and  accomplish  it  in  a  third  less  time 
than  if  working  by  the  day. 

The  deduction  which  experienced  employers  in  the  country  draw 
from  this,  is,  never  to  employ  "  rough  hands,"  or  persons  whose 
ability  and  steadiness  have  not  been  well  proved,  by  the  day  or 
month,  but  always  by  contract,  piece  or  job.  The  saving  to  the  em- 
ployer is  large ;  and  the  laborer,  while  he  gets  fairly  paid,  is  in- 
duced, by  a  feeling  of  greater  independence,  or  to  sustain  his  own 
credit,  to  labor  faithfully  and  without  wasting  the  time  of  his  em- 
ployer. 

We  saw  a  striking  illustration  of  this  lately,  in  the  case  of  two 
neighbors, — both  planting  extensive  orchards,  and  requiring,  there- 
fore, a  good  deal  of  extra  labor.  One  of  them  had  all  the  holes  for 
his  trees  dug  by  contract,  of  good  size,  and  two  spades  deep,  for  six 
cents  per  hole.  The  other  had  it  executed  by  the  day,  and  by  the 
same  class  of  labor, — foreigners,  newly  arrived.  We  had  the  curi- 
osity to  ask  a  few  questions,  to  ascertain  the  difference  of  cost  in  the 
two  cases ;  and  found,  as  we  expected,  that  the  cost  in  the  day's 
work  system  was  about  ten  cents  per  hole,  or  more  than  a  third  be- 
yond what  it  cost  by  the  job. 

Now,  whether  a  country  place  is  large  or  small,  there  is  always, 
in  the  course  of  the  season,  more  or  less  extra  work  to  be  performed. 
The  regular  gardener,  or  workman,  must  generally  be  hired  by  the 
day  or  month  ;  though  we  know  instances  of  every  thing  being  done 
by  contract.  But  all  this  extra  work  can,  in  almost  all  cases,  be 
done  by  contract,  at  a  price  greatly  below  what  it  would  otherwise 
cost.  Trenching,  subsoiling,  preparing  the  ground  for  orchards  or 
kitchen  gardens,  or  even  ploughing,  and  gathering  crops,  may  be 
done  very  much  cheaper  by  contract  than  by  day's  labor. 

Tn  Germanv,  the  whole  familv,  including  women  and  children, 


58 


HORTICULTURE. 


work  in  the  gardens  and  vineyards ;  and  they  always  do  the  same 
here  when  they  have  land  in  their  own  possession.  Now  in  every 
garden,  vineyard,  or  orchard,  there  is  a  great  deal  of  light  work, 
that  may  be  as  well  performed  by  the  younger  members  of  such  a 
family  as  by  any  others.  Hence,  we  learn  that  the  Germans,  in  the 
large  vineyards  now  growing  on  the  Ohio,  are  able  to  cultivate  the 
grape  more  profitably  than  other  persons ;  and  hence,  German  fami- 
lies, accustomed  to  this  kind  of  labor,  may  be  employed  by  contract 
in  doing  certain  kinds  of  horticultural  labors,  at  a  great  saving  to 
the  employer. 

Another  mode  of  economizing,  in' this  kind  of  expenditure,  is  by 
the  use  of,  all  possible  labor-saving  machines.  One  of  our  corres- 
pondents— a  practical  gardener — recommended,  in  our  last  num- 
ber, that  the  kitchen  garden,  in  this  country,  in  places  of  any  im- 
portance, should  always  be  placed  near  the  stables,  to  save  trouble 
and  time  in  carting  manure  ;  and  should  be  so  arranged  as  to  allow 
the  plough  and  cultivator  to  be  used,  instead  of  the  spade  and  hoe. 
This  is  excellent  and  judicious  advice,  and  exactly  adapted  to  this 
country.  In  parts  of  Europe  where  garden  labor  can  be  had  for  20 
cents  a  day,  the  kitchen  garden  may  properly  be  treated  with  such 
nicety  that  not  only  good  vegetables,  but  something  ornamental 
shall  be  attained  by  it.  But  here,  where  the  pay  is  as  much  for  one 
man's  labor  as  that  of  five  men's  labor  is  worth  in  Germany,  it  is  far 
better  to  cheapen  the  cost  of  vegetables,  and  pay  for  ornamental 
work  where  it  is  more  needed. 

So,  too,  with  regard  to  every  instance,  where  the  more  cheap  and 
rapid  working  of  an  improved  machine,  or  implement,  may  be  sub- 
stituted for  manual  labor.  In  several  of  the  largest  country  seats 
on  the  Hudson,  where  there  is  so  great  an  extent  of  walks  and  car- 
riage road,  that  several  men  would  be  employed  almost  constantly 
in  keeping  them  in  order,  they  are  all  cleaned  of  weeds  in  a  day  by 
the  aid  of  the  horse  hoe  for  gravel  walks,  described  in  the  appendix 
to  our  Landscape  Gardening.  In  all  such  cases  as  these,  the  pro- 
prietor not  only  gets  rid  of  the  trouble  and  care  of  employing  a 
large  number  of  workmen,  but  of  the  annoyance  of  paying  more 
than  their  labor  is  fairly  worth  for  the  purpose  in  question. 

There  are  many  modes  of  economizing  in  the  expenditures  of  a 


ECONOMY  IN  GARDENING. 


59 


country  place,  which  time,  and  the  ingenuity  of  our  countrymei 
will  suggest,  with  more  experience.  But  there  is  one  which  hat- 
frequently  occurred  to  us,  and  which  is  so  ohvious  that  we  are  sur- 
prised that  no  one  has  adopted  it.  We  mean  the  substitution,  in 
country  places  of  tolerable  size,  of  fine  sheep,  for  the  scythe,  in  keep- 
ing the  lawn  in  order. 

No  one  now  thinks  of  considering  his  place  in  any  way  orna- 
mental, who  does  not  keep  his  lawn  well  mown, — not  once  or  twice 
a  year,  for  grass,  but  once  or  twice  a  month,  for  "velvet."  This,  to 
be  sure,  costs  something ;  but,  for  general  effect,  the  beauty  of  a 
good  lawn  and  trees  is  so  much  greater  than  that  of  mere  flowers, 
that  no  one,  who  values  them  rightly,  would  even  think  of  paying 
dearly  for  the  latter,  and  neglecting  the  former. 

Now,  half  a  dozen  or  more  sheep,  of  some  breed  serviceable  and 
ornamental,  might  be  kept  on  a  place  properly  arranged,  so  as  to  do 
the  work  of  two  mowers,  always  keeping  the  lawn  close  and  short, 
and  not  only  without  expense,  but  possibly  with  some  profit.  No 
grass  surface,  except  a  short  lawn,  is  neater  than  one  cropped  by 
sheep ;  and,  for  a  certain  kind  of  country  residence,  where  the  pic- 
turesque or  pastoral,  rather  than  the  studiously  elegant,  is  desired, 
sheep  would  heighten  the  interest  and  beauty  of  the  scene. 

In  order  to  use  sheep  in  this  way,  the  place  should  be  so  ar- 
ranged that  the  flower-garden  and  shrubbery  shall  be  distinct  from 
the  lawn.  In  many  cases  in  England,  a  small  portion,  directly 
round  the  house,  is  inclosed  with  a  wire  fence,  woven  in  a  pretty 
pattern  (worth  three  or  four  shillings  a  yard).  This  contains  the 
flowers  and  shrubs,  on  the  parlor  side  of  the  house,  with  a  small 
portion  of  lawn  dressed  by  the  fscythe.  All  the  rest  is  fed  by  the 
sheep,  which  are  folded  regularly  every  night,  to  prevent  accident 
from  dogs.  In  this  way,  a  beautiful  lawn-like  surface  is  maintained 
without  the  least  annual  outlay.  We  commend  the  practice  for  im- 
itation in  this  country. 


IX. 


A  LOOK  ABOUT  US. 

April,  1850. 

IN"  tne  oid-fashioned  way  of  travelling,  "  up  hill  and  down  dale," 
by  post-coaches,  it  was  a  great  gratification  (altogether  lost  in 
swift  and  smooth  railroads),  to  stop  and  rest  for  a  moment  on  a  hill- 
top and  survey  the  country  behind  and  about  us. 

Something  of  this  retrospect  is  as  refreshing  and  salutary  in  any 
other  field  of  progress.  Certainly,  nothing  will  carry  us  on  with 
such  speed  as  to  look  neither  to  the  right  or  left,  to  concentrate  all 
our  powers  to  this  undeviating  straight-forward  line.  But,  on  the 
other  hand,  as  he  who  travels  in  a  rail-car  knows  little  or  nothing 
of  the  country,  except  the  points  of  departure  and  arrival,  so,  if  we 
do  not  occasionally  take  a  slight  glance  at  things  about  us,  we  shall 
be  comparatively  ignorant  of  many  interesting  features,  not  in  the 
straight  line  of  "  onward  march." 

One  of  the  best  signs  of  the  times  for  country  people,  is  the  in- 
crease of  agricultural  papers  in  number,  and  the  still  greater  increase 
of  subscribers.  "When  the  Albany  Cultivator  stood  nearly  alone  in 
the  field,  some  fifteen  years  ago,  and  boasted  of  twenty  thousand 
subscribers,  it  was  thought  a  marvellous  thing — this  interest  in  the 
intellectual  part  of  farming ;  and  there  were  those  who  thought  it 
"  could  not  last  long."  Now  that  there  are  dozens  of  agricultural 
journals,  with  hundreds  of  thousands  of  readers,  the  interest  in 
"  book  farming"  is  at  last  beginning  to  be  looked  upon  as  something 
significant ;  and  the  agricultural  press  begins  to  feel  that  it  is  of  some 
account  in  the  commonwealth.    When  it  does  something  more — 


A  LOOK  ABOUT  US. 


61 


when  it  rouses  the  farming  class  to  a  sense  of  its  rights  in  the  state, 
its  rights  to  good  education,  to  agricultural  schools,  to  a  place  in  the 
legislative  halls ;  when  farmers  shall  not  only  be  talked  about  in 
complimentary  phrase  as  "  honest  yeomen,"  or  the  "  bone  and  sinew 
of  the  country,"  but  see  and  feel  by  the  comparison  of  power  and 
influence  with  the  commercial  and  professional  classes  that  they  are 
such,  then  we  shall  not  hear  so  much  about  the  dangers  of  the 
republic,  but  more  of  the  intelligence  and  good  sense  of  the 
people. 

Among  the  good  signs  of  the  times,  we  notice  the  establishment 
of  an  Agricultural  Bureau  at  Washington.  At  its  head  has  been 
placed,  for  the  present,  at  least,  Dr.  Lee,  the  editor  of  the  Genesee 
Farmer — a  man  thoroughly  alive  to  the  interests  of  the  cultivators 
of  the  soil,  and  awake  to  the  unjust  estimation  practically  placed 
upon  farmers,  both  by  themselves  and  the  country  at  large.  If  he 
does  his  duty,  as  we  think  he  will,  in  collecting  and  presenting  sta- 
tistics and  other  information  showing  the  importance  and  value  of 
the  agriculture  of  the  United  States,  we  believe  this  Agricultural 
Bureau  will  be  of  vast  service,  if  only  in  showing  the  farmers  their 
own  strength  for  all  good  purposes,  if  they  will  only  first  educate 
and  then  use  their  powers. 

In  our  more  immediate  department — horticulture — there  are  the 
most  cheering  signs  of  improvement  in  every  direction.  In  all  parts 
of  the  country,  but  especially  at  the  West,  horticultural  societies  are 
being  formed.  We  think  Ohio  alone  numbers  five  at  this  moment ; 
and  as  the  bare  formation  of  such  societies  shows  the  existence  of 
a  little  more  than  private  zeal  on  the  part  of  the  inhabitants,  in  gar- 
dening matters,  we  may  take  it  for  granted  that  the  culture  of  gar- 
dens is  making  progress  at  the  West,  with  a  rapidity  commensurate 
to  the  wonderful  growth  there  in  other  respects. 

It  is  now  no  longer  a  question,  indeed,  that  horticulture,  both  for 
profit  and  pleasure,  is  destined  to  become  of  far  more  consequence 
here  than  in  any  part  of  Europe.  Take,  for  example,  the  matter  of 
fruit  culture.  In  no  part  of  Europe  has  the  planting  of  orchards 
been  carried  to  the  same  extent  as  it  has  already  been  in  the  United 
States.  There  is  no  single  peach  orchard  in  France,  Italy,  or  Spain, 
that  has  produced  the  owner  over  $10,000  in  a  single  year,  like 


62 


HORTICULTURE. 


one  in  Delaware.  There  is  no  apple  orchard  in  Germany  or  north- 
ern Europe,  a  single  crop  of  which  has  yielded  $12,000,  like  that 
of  Pelham  farm  on  the  Hudson.  And  these,  though  unusual  ex- 
amples of  orchard  cultivation  by  single  proprietors,  are  mere  frac- 
tions of  the  aggregate  value  of  the  products  of  the  orchards,  in  all 
the  northern  States.  The  dried  fruits — apples  and  peaches  alone,  of 
western  New-York,  amount  in  value  to  very  large  sums  annually. 
And,  if  we  judge  of  what  we  hear,  orchard  culture,  especially  of 
the  finer  market  fruits,  has  only  just  commenced. 

We  doubt  if,  at  any  horticultural  assemblage  that  ever  con- 
vened in  Europe,  there  has  been  the  same  amount  of  practical 
knowledge  of  pomology  brought  together  as  at  the  congress  of  fruit- 
growers, last  October,  in  New- York.  An  intelligent  nurseryman,  who 
has  just  returned  from  a  horticultural  tour  through  Great  Britain, 
assures  us,  that  at  the  present  moment  that  country  is  astonishingly 
behind  us,  both  in  interest  in,  and  knowledge  of  fruits.  This  he 
partly  explains  by  the  fact,  that  only  half  a  dozen  sorts  of  each  fruit 
are  usually  grown  in  England,  where  we  grow  twenty  or  thirty ; 
but  mainly  by  the  inferiority  of  their  climate,  which  makes  the  cul- 
ture of  pears,  peaches,  &c,  without  walls,  an  impossibility,  except  in 
rare  cases.  Again,  the  fact  that  in  this  country,  there  are  so  many 
landholders  of  intelligence  among  all  classes  of  society — all  busy  in 
improving  their  places — whether  they  consist  of  a  rood  or  a  mile 
square — causes  the  interest  in  fine  fruits  to  become  so  multiplied, 
that  it  assumes  an  importance  here  that  is  not  dreamed  of  for  it,  on 
the  other  side  of  the  water. 

With  this  wide-spread  interest,  and  the  numberless  experiments 
that  large  practice  will  beget,  we  trust  we  shall  veiy  soon  see  good 
results  in  the  production  of  best  native  varieties  of  the  finer  fruits. 
Almost  every  experienced  American  horticulturist  has  become 
convinced  that  we  shall  never  fairly  "  touch  bottom,"  or  rest  on  a 
solid  foundation,  till  we  get  a  good  assortment  of  first-rate  pears, 
grapes,  &c,  raised  from  seeds  in  this  country ;  sorts  with  sound  con- 
stitutions, adapted  to  our  climate  and  soil.  With  great  respect  for 
the  unwearied  labors  of  Van  Mons,  and  others  who  have  followed 
his  plan  of  obtaining  varieties,  we  have  not  the  least  faith  in  the 
vital  powers  of  varieties  so  originated.    They  will,  in  the  end,  be 


A  LOOK  ABOUT  US. 


63 


entirely  abandoned  in  this  country  for  sound  healthy  seedlings, 
raised  directly  from  vigorous  parents. 

Far  as  we  are  in  advance  of  Europe,  at  this  moment,  in  the 
matter  of  pomology,  we  are  a  long  way  behind  in  all  that  relates  to 
ornamental  gardening.  Not  that  there  is  not  a  wonderfully  growing 
taste  for  ornamental  gardening,  especially  in  the  northern  and  east- 
ern  States.  Not,  indeed,  that  we  have  not  a  number  of  country 
places  that  would  be  respectable  in  point  of  taste  and  good  cultiva- 
tion every  where.  But  the  popular  feeling  has  not  fairly  set  in  this 
direction,  and  most  persons  are  content  with  a  few  common  trees, 
shrubs,  and  plants,  when  they  might  adorn  their  lawns  and  gardens 
with  species  of  far  greater  beauty. 

One  of  the  greatest  drawbacks  to  the  satisfaction  of  pleasure- 
grounds,  in  this  country,  is  the  want  of  knowledge  as  to  how  they 
should  be  arranged  to  give  rapid  growth  and  fine  verdure.  The 
whole  secret,  as  we  have  again  and  again  stated,  is  the  deep  soil ; 
if  not  naturally  such,  then  made  so  by  deep  culture.  Even  the  best 
English  gardeners  (always  afraid,  in  their  damp  climate,  of  canker, 
if  the  roots  go  downwards)  are  discouraged,  and  fail  in  our  plea- 
sure-grounds, from  the  very  fineness  and  dryness  of  our  climate,  be- 
cause they  will  not  trench — trench — trench  !  as  we  all  must  do,  to 
have  satisfactory  lawns  or  pleasure-grounds. 

And  this  reminds  us  that  a  great  want  in  the  country,  at  the 
present  time,  is  a  sort  of  practical  school  for  gardeners ;  not  so 
much  to  teach  them  from  the  outset — for  ninety-nine  hundredths 
of  all  our  gardeners  are  Europeans — as  to  naturalize  their  know- 
ledge in  this  country.  If  one  of  the  leading  horticultural  societies, 
with  ready  means  (that  of  Boston,  for  example),  would  start  an 
experimental  garden,  and  making,  by  an  agency  abroad,  some  ar- 
rangement with  deserving  gardeners  wishing  to  emigrate,  take  these 
freshmen  on  their  arrival,  and  carry  them  through  a  season's  prac- 
tice in  the  experimental  garden,  and  let  them  out  at  the  end  of  a 
year  really  good  gardeners  for  our  climate,  they  would  do  an  incal- 
culable service  to  the  cause  of  horticulture,  and  to  thousands  of 
employers,  besides  getting  their  own  gardens  (like  that  of  the  Lon- 
don Horticultural  Society)  cultivated  at  a  little  cost. 

It  may  be  said  that  gardeners  would  not  enter  such  a  prepara- 


64 


HORTICULTURE. 


tory  garden,  since  they  could  find  places  at  once.  We  reply  to  this, 
that  if  they  found,  after  they  had  had  their  year's  practice  in  this 
garden,  and  could  show  its  certificate  of  character  and  abilities,  they 
could  readily  get  $50  or  $100  a  year  more — as  we  are  confident 
they  could — there  would  be  no  difficulty  on  this  head. 

The  Belgian  government  has  just  established  such  a  school,  and 
placed  it  under  the  direction  of  M.  Van  Houtte,  the  well-known 
horticulturist  of  Ghent.  Something  of  the  sort  has  been  contem- 
plated here,  in  connection  with  the  agricultural  college  proposed  by 
this  State.  Considering  the  scarcity,  nay,  absolute  dearth  of  good 
gardeners  among  us  at  the  present  moment, — the  supply  not  half 
equal  to  the*  demand, — it  seems  to  us  that  some  plan  might  be 
adopted  by  which  we  should  not  be  at  the  mercy  of  those  who  only 
call  themselves  gardeners,  but  who  also  know  little  beyond  the  mys- 
teries of  cultivating  that  excellent  plant,  the  Solarium  tuberosum, 
commonly  known  as  the  potato. 


X. 

A  SPRING  GOSSIP. 

May,  1850. 

"  TF  any  man  feels  no  joy  in  the  spring,  then  has  he  no  warm 
J.  blood  in  his  veins  ! "  So  said  one  of  the  old  dramatists,  two 
hundred  years  ago ;  and  so  we  repeat  his  very  words  in  this  month 
of  May,  eighteen  hundred  and  fifty.  Not  to  feel  the  sweet  influences 
of  this  young  and  creative  season,  is  indeed  lite  being  blind  to  the 
dewy  brightness  of  the  rainbow,  or  deaf  to  the  rich  music  of  the 
mocking-bird.  Why,  every  thing  feels  it ;  the  gushing,  noisy  brook ; 
the  full-throated  robin ;  the  swallows  circling  and  sailing  through 
the  air.  Even  the  old  rocks  smile,  and  look  less  hard  and  stony ; 
or  at  least  try  to  by  the  help  of  the  moss,  lately  grown  green  in  the 
rain  and  sunshine  of  April.    And,  as  Lowell  has  so  finely  said, 

"  Every  clod  feels  a  stir  of  might, 
An  instinct  within  it  that  reaches  and  towers ; 

And  grasping  blindly  above  it  for  light, 
Climbs  to  a  soul  in  grass  and  flowers." 

From  the  time  when  the  maple  hangs  out  its  little  tufts  of  ruddy 
threads  on  the  wood  side,  or  the  first  crocus  astonishes  us  with  its  au- 
dacity in  embroidering  the  ground  with  gold  almost  before  the  snow 
has  left  it,  until  June  flings  us  her  first  garlands  of  roses  to  tell  us 
that  summer  is  at  hand,  all  is  excitement  in  the  country — real  po- 
etic excitement — some  spark  of  which  even  the  dullest  souls  that 
follow  the  oxen  must  feel. 

'No  matter  how  barren  the  past  may  have  been, 
"lis  enough  for  us  now  that  the  leaves  are  green." 
5 


66 


HORTICULTURE. 


And  you,  most  sober  and  practical  of  men,  as  you  stand  in  your 
orchard  and  see  the  fruit  trees  all  dressed  in  spring  robes  of  white, 
and  pink,  and  blush,  and  immediately  set  about  divining  what  a 
noble  crop  you  will  have,  "if  nothing  happens" — meaning,  thereby, 
if  every  thing  happens  as  nature  for  the  most  part  makes  it  happen 
— you,  too,  are  a  little  of  a  poet  in  spite  of  yourself.  You  imagine — 
you  hope — you  believe — and,  from  that  delicate  gossamer  fabric  of 
peach-blossoms,  you  conjure  out  of  the  future,  bushels  of  downy, 
ripe,  ruddy,  and  palpable,  though  melting  rareripes,  every  one  of 
which  is  such  as  was  never  seen  but  at  prize  exhibitions,  when  gold 
medals  bring  out  horticultural  prodigies.  If  this  is  not  being  a  poet 
— a  practical  one,  if  you  please,  but  still  a  poet — then  are  there  no 
gay  colors  in  peacocks1  tails. 

And  as  for  our  lady  readers  in  the  country,  who  hang  over  the 
sweet  firstlings  of  the  flowers  that  the  spring  gives  us,  with  as  fresh 
and  as  pure  a  delight  every  year  as  if  the  world  (and  violets)  were 
just  new  born,  and  had  not  been  convulsed,  battered,  and  torn  by 
earthquakes,  wars,  and  revolutions,  for  more  than  six  thousand  years ; 
why,  we  need  not  waste  time  in  proving  them  to  be  poets,  and  their 
lives — or  at  least  all  that  part  of  them  passed  in  delicious  rambles 
in  the  woods,  or  sweet  toils  in  the  garden — pure  poetry.  However 
stupid  the  rest  of  creation  may  be,  they,  at  least,  see  and  understand 
that  those  early  gifts  of  the  year,  yes,  and  the  very  spring  itself,  are 
types  of  fairer  and  better  things.  They,  at  least,  feel  that  this  won- 
derful resurrection  of  life  and  beauty  out  of  the  death-sleep  of  win- 
ter, has  a  meaning  in  it  that  should  bring  glad  tears  into  our  eyes, 
being,  as  it  is,  a  foreshadowing  of  that  transformation  and  awaken- 
ing of  us  all  in  the  spiritual  spring  of  another  and  a  higher  life. 

The  flowers  of  spring  are  not  so  gay  and  gorgeous  as  those  of 
summer  and  autumn.  Except  those  flaunting  gentlemen-ushers  the 
Dutch  tulips  (which,  indeed,  have  been  coaxed  into  gay  liveries 
since  Mynheer  fell  sick  of  flori-mania),  the  spring  blossoms  are 
delicate,  modest,  and  subdued  in  color,  and  with  something  more  of 
freshness  and  vivacity  about  them  than  is  common  in  the  lilies, 
roses,  and  dahlias  of  a  later  and  hotter  time  of  the  year.  The  fact 
that  the  violet  blooms  in  the  spring,  is  of  itself  enough  to  make  the 
season  dear  to  us.    We  do  not  now  mean  the  pansy,  or  three-col- 


A  SPRING  GOSSIP. 


67 


ored  violet — the  "  Johnny-jump-up "  of  the  cottager — that  little, 
roguish  coquette  of  a  blossom,  all  animation  and  boldness — but  the 
true  violet  of  the  poets  ;  the  delicate,  modest,  retiring  violet,  dim, 

"But  sweeter  than  the  lids  of  Juno's  eyes, 
Or  Cytherea's  breath." 

The  flower  that  has  been  loved,  and  praised,  and  petted,  and  culti- 
vated, at  least  three  thousand  years,  and  is  not  in  the  least  spoiled 
by  it ;  nay,  has  all  the  unmistakable  freshness  still,  of  a  nature 
ever  young  and  eternal. 

There  is  a  great  deal,  too,  in  the  associations  that  cluster  about 
spring  flowers.  Take  that  early  yellow  flower,  popularly  known  as 
"  Butter  and  Eggs,"  and  the  most  common  bulb  in  all  our  gardens, 
though  introduced  from  abroad.  It  is  not  handsome,  certainly,  al- 
though one  always  welcomes  its  hardy  face  with  pleasure ;  but  when 
we  know  that  it  suggested  that  fine  passage  to  Shakspeare — 

"Daffodils 

That  come  before  the  swallow  dares,  and  take 
The  winds  of  March  with  beauty  " — 

we  feel  that  the  flower  is  for  ever  immortalized ;  and  though  not 
half  so  handsome  as  our  native  blood-root,  with  its  snowy  petals,  or 
our  wood  anemone,  tinged  like  the  first  blush  of  morning,  yet  still 
the  daffodil,  embalmed  by  poesy,  like  a  fly  in  amber,  has  a  value 
given  it  by  human  genius  that  causes  it  to  stir  the  imagination  more 
than  the  most  faultless  and  sculpture-like  camellia  that  ever  bloomed 
in  marble 'conservatory. 

A  pleasant  task  it  would  be  to  linger  over  the  spring  flowers, 
taking  them  up  one  by  one,  and  inhaling  all  their  fragrance  and 
poetry,  leisurely — whether  the  cowslips,  hyacinths,  daisies,  and  haw- 
thorns of  the  garden,  or  the  honeysuckles,  trilliums,  wild  moccasins, 
and  liverworts  of  the  woods.  But  we  should  grow  garrulous  on 
the  subject  and  the  season,  if  we  were  to  wander  thus  into  details. 

Among  all  the  flowers  of  spring,  there  are,  however,  few  that 
surpass  in  delicacy,  freshness,  and  beauty,  that  common  and  popular 
thing,  an  apple  blossom.  Certainly,  no  one  would  plant  an  apple- 
tree  in  his  park  or  pleasure  ground ;  for,  like  a  hard  day-laborer, 


HORTICULTURE. 


it  has  a  bent  and  bowed-down  look  in  its  bead  and  branches,  tha. 
ill  accord  with  the  graceful  bending  of  the  elm,  or  the  well-rounded 
curve  of  the  maple.  But  as  the  day-laborer  has  a  soul,  which  at 
one  time  or  another  must  blossom  in  all  its  beauty,  so  too  has  tbe 
apple-tree  a  flower  that  challenges  the  world  to  surpass  it,  whether 
for  the  delicacy  with  which  the  white  and  red  are  blended — as  upon 
the  cheek  of  fairest  maiden  of  sixteen — or  the  wild  grace  and  sym- 
metry of  its  cinquefoil  petals,  or  the  harmony  of  its  coloring  height- 
ened by  the  tender  verdure  of  the  bursting  leaves  that  surround  it. 
We  only  mention  this  to  show  what  a  wealth  of  beauty  there  is  in 
common  and  familiar  objects  in  the  country ;  and  if  any  of  our 
town  readers  are  so  unfortunate  as  never  to  have  seen  an  apple  or- 
chard in  full  bloom,  then  have  they  lost  one  of  the  fairest  sights  that 
the  month  of  April  has  in  her  kaleidoscope.  , 

Spring,  in  this  countiy,  is  not  the  tedious  jade  that  she  is  in 
England, — keeping  one  waiting  from  February  till  June,  while  she 
makes  her  toilet,  and  fairly  puts  her  foot  on  the  daisy-spangled  turf. 
For  the  most  part,  she  comes  to  us  with  a  quick  bound ;  and,  to 
make  amends  for  being  late,  she  showers  down  such  a  wealth  of 
blossoms,  that  our  gardens  and  orchards,  at  the  end  of  April,  look  as 
if  they  were  turned  into  fairy  parterres,  so  loaded  are  they — espe- 
cially the  fruit  trees — with  beauty  and  promise.  An  American 
spring  may  be  said  to  commence  fairly  with  the  blossom  of  the  apri- 
cot or  the  elm  tree,  and  end  with  the  ripening  of  the  first  strawber- 
ries. 

To  end  with  strawberries  !  What  a  finale  to  one's  life.  More 
sanguinary,  perhaps  (as  there  is  a  stain  left  on  one's  fingers  some- 
times), but  not  less  delicious  than  to 

"  Die  of  a  rose  in  aromatic  pain." 

But  it  is  a  fitting  close  to  such  a  beautiful  season  to  end  with  such 
a  fruit  as  this.  We  believe,  indeed,  that  strawberries,  if  the  truth 
could  be  known,  are  the  most  popular  of  fruits.  People  always  af- 
fect to  prefer  the  peach,  or  the  orange,  or  perhaps  the  pear  ;  but  this 
is  only  because  these  stand  well  in  the  world — are  much  talked  of 
— and  can  give  "  the  most  respectable  references."    But  take  our 


A  SPRING  GOSSIP. 


69 


word  for  it,  if  the  secret  preference,  the  concealed  passion,  of  every 
lover  of  fruit  could  be  got  at,  without  the  formality  of  a  public  trial, 
the  strawberry  would  be  found  out  to  be  the  little  betrayer  of  hearts. 
Was  not  Linnseus  cured  of  the  gout  by  them  ?  And  did  not  even 
that  hard-hearted  monster,  Richard  the  III.,  beseech  "My  Lord 
of  Ely  "  to  send  for  some  of  "  the  good  strawberries "  from  his  gar- 
den at  Holbom  ?  Nay,  an  Italian  poet  has  written  a  whole  poem, 
of  nine  hundred  lines  or  more,  entirely  upon  strawberries.  "  Straw- 
berries and  sugar "  are  to  him  what  "  sack  and  sugar "  was  to  Fal- 
staff — "the  indispensable  companion — the  sovereign  remedy  for 
all  evil — the  climax  of  good."  In  short,  he  can  do  no  more  in  wish- 
ing a  couple  of  new  married  friends  of  his  the  completest  earthly 
happiness,  than  to  say — 

"  E  a  dire  che  ogni  cosa  lieta  vada, 
Su  le  Fragole  il  zucchero  le  cada." 

In  short,  to  sum  up  all  that  earth  can  prize, 
May  they  have  sugar  to  their  strawberries ! 

There  are  few  writers  who  have  treated  of  the  spring  and  its  in- 
fluences more  fittingly  than  some  of  the  English  essayists ;  for  the 
English  have  the  key  to  the  poetry  of  rural  life.  Indeed,  we  cannot 
perhaps  give  our  readers  greater  pleasure  than  by  ending  this  article 
with  the  following  extract  from  one  of  the  papers  of  that  genial  and 
kindly  writer,  Leigh  Hunt : 

"  The  lightest  thoughts  have  their  roots  in  gravity ;  and  the  most 
fugitive  colors  of  the  world  are  set  off  by  the  mighty  background 
of  eternity.  One  of  the  greatest  pleasures  of  so  light  and  airy  a 
thing  as  the  vernal  season,  arises  from  the  consciousness  that  the 
world  is  young  again ;  that  the  spring  has  come  round ;  that  we 
shall  not  all  cease,  and  be  no  world.  Nature  has  begun  again,  and 
not  begun  for  nothing.  One  fancies  somehow  that  she  could  not 
have  the  heart  to  put  a  stop  to  us  in  April  or  May.  She  may  pluck 
away  a  poor  little  life  here  and  there  ;  nay,  many  blossoms  of  youth, 
— but  not  all, — not  the  whole  garden  of  life.  She  prunes,  but  does 
not  destroy.  If  she  did, — if  she  were  in  the  mind  to  have  done 
with  us,—  to  look  upon  us  as  a  sort  of  experiment  not  worth  going 


10 


HORTICULTURE. 


on  with,  as  a  set  of  ungenial  and  obstinate  compounds,  which,  re- 
fused to  co-operate  in  her  sweet  designs,  and  could  not  be  made  to 
answer  in  the  working, — depend  upon  it,  she  would  take  pity  on  our 
incapability  and  bad  humors,  and  conveniently  quash  us  in  some 
dismal,  sullen  winter's  day,  just  at  the  natural  dying  of  the  year, 
most  likely  in  November  ;  for  Christmas  is  a  sort  of  spring  itself — 
a  winter  flowering.  We  care  nothing  for  arguments  about  storms, 
earthquakes,  or  other  apparently  unseasonable  interruptions  of  our 
pleasures.  We  imitate,  in  that  respect,  the  magnanimous  indiffer- 
ence, or  what  appears  to  be  such,  of  the  great  mother  herself,  know- 
ing that  she  means  us  the  best  in  the  gross  ;  and  also  that  we  may 
all  get  our  remedies  for  these  evils  in  time,  if  we  will  only  co-operate. 
People  in  South  America,  for  instance,  may  learn  from  experience, 
and  build  so  as  to  make  a  comparative  nothing  of  those  rockings  of 
the  ground.  It  is  of  the  gross  itself  that  we  speak  ;  and  sure  we 
are,  that  with  an  eye  to  that,  Nature  does  not  feel  as  Pope  ventures 
to  say  she  does,  or  sees  '  with  equal  eye ' — 

Atoms  or  systems  into  ruin  hurl'd, 

And  now  a  bubble  burst,  and  now  a  world.' 

"  He  may  have  nattered  himself  that  he  should  think  it  a  fine 
thing  for  his  little  poetship  to  sit  upon  a  star,  and  look  grand  in  his 
own  eyes,  from  an  eye  so  very  dispassionate ;  but  Nature,  who  is  the 
author  of  passion,  and  joy,  and  sorrow,  does  not  look  upon  animate 
and  inanimate,  depend  upon  it,  with  the  same  want  of  sympathy. 
'  A  world '  full  of  hopes,  and  loves,  and  endeavors,  and  of  her  own 
life  and  loveliness,  is  a  far  greater  thing  in  her  eyes,  rest  assured,  than 
a  '  bubble  ;'  and,  a  fortiori,  many  worlds,  or  a  '  system,'  far  greater 
than  the  '  atom,'  talked  of  with  so  much  complacency  by  this  di- 
vine little  whipper-snapper.  Ergo,  the  moment  the  kind  mother 
gives  promise  of  a  renewed  year,  with  these  green  and  budding  sig- 
nals, be  certain  she  is  not  going  to  falsify  them  ;  and  that  being  sure 
of  April,  we  are  sure  as  far  as  November.  As  for  an  existence  any 
further,  that,  we  conceive,  depends  somewhat  upon  how  we  behave 
ourselves  ;  and  therefore  we  would  exhort  everybody  to  do  their  best 
for  the  earth,  and  all  that  is  upon  it,  in  order  that  it  and  they  may 
be  thought  worth  continuance. 


A  SPRING  GOSSIP. 


71 


"  What !  Shall  we  be  put  into  a  beautiful  garden,  and  turn  up 
our  noses  at  it,  and  call  it  a  '  vale  of  tears,'  and  all  sorts  of  bad 
names  (helping  thereby  to  make  it  so),  and  yet  confidently  reckon 
that  nature  will  never  shut  it  up,  and  have  done  with  it,  or  set  about 
forming  a  better  stock  of  inhabitants  ?  Recollect,  We  beseech  you, 
dear  'Lord  Worldly  Wiseman,'  and  you,  'Sir  Having,'  and  my 
'  Lady  Greedy,'  that  there  is  reason  for  supposing  that  man  was 
not  always  an  inhabitant  of  this  very  fashionable  world,  and  some- 
what larger  globe  ;  and  that  perhaps  the  chief  occupant  before  him 
was  only  an  inferior  species  to  ourselves  (odd  as  you  may  think  it), 
who  could  not  be  brought  to  know  what  a  beautiful  place  he  lived 
in,  and  so  had  a  different  chance  given  him  in  a  different  shape. 
Good  heavens !  If  there  were  none  but  mere  ladies  and  gentlemen, 
and  city-men,  and  soldiers,  upon  earth,  and  no  poets,  readers,  and 
milkmaids,  to  remind  us  that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  Nature,  we 
really  should  begin  to  tremble  for  Almacks  and  Change  Alley  (the 
upper  ten'  and  Wall-street),  about  the  20th  of  next  October." 


XI. 


THE  GREAT  DISCOVERY  IN  VEGETATION. 

April,  1851. 

IT  is  one  of  the  misfortunes  of  an  editor  to  be  expected  to  answer 
all  questions,  as  if  he  were  an  oracle.  It  is  all  pleasant  enough, 
when  his  correspondent  is  lost  in  the  woods,  and  he  can  speedily  set 
him  right,  or  when  he  is  groping  in  some  dark  passage  that  only- 
needs  the  glimmer  of  his  farthing  candle  of  experience,  to  make 
the  way  tolerably  clear  to  him.  But  correspondents  are  often  un- 
reasonable, and  ask  for  what  is  little  short  of  a  miracle.  It  is  clear 
that  an  editor  is  not  only  expected  to  know  every  thing,  but  that  he 
is  not  to  be  allowed  the  comfort  of  belonging  to  any  secret  societies, 
or  any  of  those  little  fraternities  where  such  a  charming  air  of  mys- 
tery is  thrown  over  the  commonest  subjects. 

We  are  brought  to  these  reflections  by  a  letter  that  has  just 
come  before  us,  and  which  runs  as  follows : 

Dear  Sir  : — I  have  been  expecting  in  the  last  two  numbers,  to 
hear  from  you  on  the  subject  of  the  great  discovery  in  vegetation, 
which  was  laid  before  the  committee  of  the  State  Agricultural  Soci- 
ety at  its  annual  meeting  in  January  last.  You  were,  if  I  mistake 
not,  a  member  of  that  committee,  and  of  course,  the  fullest  disclo- 
sures of  the  secret  of  the  gentleman  who  claims  to  have  found  out 
a  new  "  principle  in  vegetation,"  were  laid  before  you.  No  formal 
report  has,  I  think,  been  published  by  the  Society.  The  public  are, 
therefore,  in  the  dark  still.  Is  this  right,  when  the  discoverer  is  now 
urging  ;he  Legislature  of  this  State  to  pass  a  bill  giving  him  a 


THE  GREAT  DISCOVERY  IN  VEGETATION. 


73 


bonus  of  $150,000  to  make  his  secret  public,  for  the  benefit  of  all 
cultivators  of  the  soil  ?  Either  the  thing  is  pure  humbug,  or  there 
is  something  in  it  worthy  of  attention.  Pray  enlighten  us  on  this 
subject.  Yours,  &c. 

Yes,  we  were  upon  that  committee,  and  nothing  would  give  us 
greater  pleasure  than  to  unburden  our  heart  to  the  public  on  this 
subject,  and  rid  our  bosom  of  this  "perilous  stuff"  that  has  weighed 
upon  us  ever  since.  But  alas  !  this  gentleman  who  has  been  urging 
his  great  discovery  upon  the  attention  of  Congress  and  the  Legisla- 
ture for  ten  or  twelve  years  past,  put  all  the  committee  under  a 
solemn  vow  of  secrecy,  though  we  protested  at  the  time  against  his 
expecting  that  a  horticultural  editor  should  preserve  silence  touching 
any  thing  that  is  told  him  sub  rosa. 

And  yet  we  would  not  treat  our  correspondent  rudely ;  for  his 
letter  only  expresses  what  a  good  many  others  have  expressed  to  us 
verbally.  We  shall,  therefore,  endeavor  to  console  him  for  the  want 
of  the  learned  dissertation  on  vegetable  physiology  which  he  no 
doubt  expected,  by  teUing  him  a  story. 

Once  on  a  time  there  was  a  little  spaniel,  who  lived  only  for  the 
good  of  his  race.  He  had  a  mild  countenance,  and  looked  at  the 
first,  enough  like  other  dogs.  But  for  all  that,  he  was  an  oddity. 
Year  in  and  year  out,  this  little  spaniel  wandered  about  with  a  wise 
look,  like  the  men  that  gaze  at  the  stars  through  the  great  tele- 
scopes. The  fact  was,  he  had  taken  it  into  his  head  that  he  was  a 
philosopher,  and  had  discovered  a  great  secret.  This  was  no  less 
than  the  secret  of  instinct  by  which  dogs  do  so  many  wonderful 
things,  that  some  men  with  all  their  big  looks,  their  learning,  yes, 
and  even  their  wonderful  knack  of  talking,  cannot  do. 

It  was  curious  to  see  how  the  little  spaniel  who  had  turned  philo- 
sopher, gave  himself  up  to  this  fancy  that  had  got  into  his  head.  He 
had  a  comfortable  kennel,  where  he  might  have  kept  house,  barked, 
looked  after  trespassers,  where  he  might  have  been  well  fed,  and 
had  a  jolly  time  of  it  like  other  dogs. 

But  no,  he  was  far  too  wise  for  that.  He  had,  as  he  said,  found 
out  something  that  would  alter  the  whole  "  platform "  on  which 
dogs  stood,  something  that  would  help  them  to  carry  their  heads 


74 


HORTICULTURE. 


higher  than  many  men  he  could  name,  instead  of  being  obliged  to 
play  second  fiddle  to  the  horse.  If  the  community  of  dogs  in  gen- 
eral would  but  listen  to  him,  he  would  teach  them  not  only  how  to 
be  always  wise  and  rich,  how  to  be  strong  and  hearty,  but  above  all, 
how  to  preserve  their  scent — for  the  scent  is  a  pleasure  that  dogs 
prize  as  much  as  some  old  ladies  who  take  snuff.  In  short,  the 
knowledge  of  this  wonderful  discovery  would  bring  about  a  canine 
millennium — for  he  assured  them  that  not  only  was  everyone  of  them 
entitled  to  his  "  day,"  but  that  "  a  good  time  was  coming,"  even  for 
dogs. 

And  why,  you  will  say,  did  not  our  philosopher  divulge  for  the 
benefit  of  the  whole  family  of  dogs  ?  "  It  is  so  pleasant  to  do  some- 
thing for  the  elevation  of  our  race,"  as  the  travelled  monkey  thought 
when  he  was  teaching  his  brothers  to  walk  on  their  hind  legs.  All 
the  dogs  in  the  country  could  not  but  owe  him  a  debt  of  gratitude, 
since  they  would  soon  become^  so  wise  that  they  might  even  teach 
their  masters  something  of  instinct.  And  then  they  would  be  so 
happy — since  there  would  not  be  a  downcast  tail  in  all  the  land — 
for  the  whole  country  would  be  in  one  perpetual  wag  of  delight. 

Ah !  dear  reader,  we  see  that  you,  who  put  such  questions,  know 
nothing  either  of  philosophy,  or  the  world.  As  if  the  people  who 
discover  why  the  world  turns  round,  and  the  stars  shine,  throw  their 
knowledge  into  the  street  for  every  dog  to  trample  on.  No,  indeed ! 
They  will  have  a  patent  for  it,  or  a  great  sum  of  money  from  the 
government,  or  something  of  that  sort.  It  would  be  a  sorry  fellow 
who  should  think  that  eveiy  new  thing  found  out  is  to  be  given 
away  to  every  body  for  nothing  at  all,  in  that  manner.  To  be  sure, 
it  would,  perhaps,  benefit  mankind  all  the  more ;  but  that  is  only 
half  the  question.  "  If  you  think  the  moon  is  made  of  green 
cheese,"  said  our  curly  philosopher  to  his  friends,  "  you  are  greatly 
mistaken.  I  am  well  satisfied,  for  my  part,  that  that  is  only  a  vul- 
gar error.  If  it  had  been,  John  Bull  would  have  eaten  it  up  for 
lunch  a  long  time  ago." 

So  our  philosopher  went  about  among  his  fellow-dogs,  far  and 
near,  and  spent  most  of  his  little  patrimony  in  waiting  on  distin- 
guished mastiffs,  Newfoundlands,  and  curs  of  high  degree.  He 
went,  also,  to  all  conventions  or  public  assemblies,  where  wise  ter- 


THE  GREAT  DISCOVERY  IN  VEGETATION. 


75 


riers  were  in  the  habit  of  putting  their  heads  together  for  the  public 
good.  Wherever  he  went,  you  would  see  him  holding  some  poor 
victim  by  the  button,  expounding  his  great  secret,  and  showing  how 
the  progress,  yes,  the  veiy  existence  of  dogs,  depended  upon  the 
knowledge  of  his  secret — since  it  would  really  explain  in  a  moment 
every  thing  that  had  been  dark  since  the  days  when  their  great- 
grandfathers were  kept  from  drowning  in  the  ark.  Only  let  the 
congress  of  greyhounds  agree  to  pay  him  a  million  of  money,  and 
he  would  make  known  principles  that  would  make  the  distemper 
cease,  and  all  the  other  ills  that  dog-flesh  is  heir  to,  fade  clean  out 
of  memory. 

Some  of  the  big  dogs  to  whom  he  told  his  secret  (always,  re- 
member, in  the  strictest  confidence),  shook  their  heads,  and  looked 
wise  ;  others,  to  get  rid  of  his  endless  lectures,  gave  him  a  certificate, 
saying  that  Solomon  was  wrong  when  he  said  there  was  nothing 
new  under  the  sun ;  and  all  agreed  that  there  was  no  denying  that 
there  is  something  in  it,  though  they  could  not  exactly  say  it  was  a 
new  discovery. 

Finally,  after  a  long  time  spent  in  lobbying,  and  after  Avise  talks 
with  all  the  members  that  would  listen  to  him,  yes,  and  after  exhib- 
iting to  every  dog  that  had  an  hour  to  give  him,  his  collection  of 
dogs'  bones  that  had  died  solely  because  of  the  lamentable  ignorance 
of  his  secret  in  dogdom,  he  found  a  committee  that  took  hold  of 
his  doctrine  in  good  earnest — quite  determined  to  do  justice  to  him, 
and  vote  him  a  million  if  he  deserved  it,  but,  nevertheless,  quite  de- 
termined not  to  be  humbugged  by  any  false  doggerel,  however 
potent  it  might  have  been  to  terriers  less  experienced  in  this  current 
commodity  of  many  modern  philosophers. 

It  was  a  long  story  that  the  committee  were  obliged  to  hear, 
and  there  were  plenty  of  hard  words  thrown  in  to  puzzle  terriers 
who  might  not  have  had  a  scientific  education  in  their  youth.  But 
the  dogs  on  the  committee  were  not  to  be  puzzled  ;  they  seized  hold 
of  the  fundamental  principle  of  the  philosophic  spaniel,  tossed  it, 
and  worried  it,  and  shook  it,  till  it  stood  out,  at  last,  quite  a  simple 
truth  (how  beautiful  is  deep  philosophy),  and  it  was  this — 

The  great  secret  of  perfect  instinct  in  dogs,  is  to  keep  their 

NOSES  COOL. 


HORTICULTURE. 


Of  course,  the  majority  of  the  committee  were  startled  and  de- 
lighted with  the  novelty  and  grandeur  of  the  discovery.  There 
were,  to  be  sure,  a  few  who  had  the  foolhardiness  to  remark,  that 
the  thing  was  not  new,  and  had  been  acted  upon,  time  out  of  mind, 
in  all  good  kennels.  But  the  philosopher  soon  put  down  such  non- 
sense, by  observing  that  the  fact  might,  perchance,  have  been  known 
to  a  few,  but  who,  before  him,  had  ever  shown  the  principle  of  the 
thing  ? 

And  now,  we  should  like  to  see  that  cur  who  shall  dare  to  say 
the  canine  philosopher  who  has  spent  his  life  jn  studying  nature  and 
the  books,  to  such  good  results,  shall  not  have  a  million  for  his 
discoverv 


I 


XII. 

k 


STATE  AND  PROSPECTS  OF  HORTICULTURE. 

December,  1851. 

A RETROSPECTIVE  glance  over  the  journey  we  have  travelled, 
is  often  both  instructive  and  encouraging.  We  not  only  learn 
what  we  have  really  accomplished,  but  we  are  better  able  to  over- 
come the  obstacles  that  lie  in  our  onward  way,  by  reviewing  the 
difficulties  already  overcome. 

The  progress  of  the  last  five  years  in  Horticulture,  has  been  a 
remarkable  one  in  the  United  States.  The  rapid  increase  of  popu- 
lation, and  the  accumulation  of  capital,  has  very  naturally  led  to  the 
multiplication  of  private  gardens  and  country-seats,  and  the  planting 
of  orchards  and  market  gardens,  to  an  enormous  extent.  The 
facility  with  which  every  man  may  acquire  land  in  this  country, 
naturally  leads  to  the  formation  of  separate  and  independent  homes, 
and  the  number  of  those  who  are  in  some  degree  interested  in  the 
culture  of  the  soil  is  thus  every  day  being  added  to.  The  very  fact, 
however,  that  a  large  proportion  of  these  little  homes  are  new 
places,  and  that  the  expense  of  building  and  establishing  them 
is  considerable,  prevents  their  owners  from  doing  much  more 
for  the  first  few  years,  than  to  secure  the  more  useful  and  necessary 
features  of  the  establishment.  Hence,  the  ornamental  still  appears 
neglected  in  our  country  homes  and  gardens,  generally,  as  compared 
with  those  of  the  more  civilized  countries  abroad.  The  shrubs,  and 
flowers,  and  vines,  that  embellish  almost  every  where  the  rural  homes 
of  England,  are  as  yet  only  rarely  seen  in  this  country — though  in  all 
the  older  sections  of  the  Union  the  taste  for  ornamental  gardening 


78 


HORTICULTURE. 


is  developing  itself  anew  every  day.  On  the  other  hand,  the  great 
facility  with  which  excellent  fruits  and  vegetables  are  grown  in  this 
climate,  as  compared  with  the  Forth  of  Europe,  makes  our  gardens 
compare  most  favorably  with  theirs  in  respect  to  these  two  points. 
The  tables  of  the  United  States  are  more  abundantly  supplied  with 
peaches  and  melons,  than  those  of  the  wealthiest  classes  abroad — 
and  the  display  of  culinary  vegetables  of  the  North  of  Europe,  which 
is  almost  confined  to  the  potatoes,  peas,  French  beans,  and  cauli- 
flowers, makes  but  a  sorry  comparison  with  the  abundant  bill  of 
fare  within  the  daily  reach  of  all  Americans.  The  traveller  abroad 
from  this  side  of  the  Atlantic,  learns  to  value  the  tomatoes,  Indian 
corn,  Lima  beans,  egg-plants,  okra,  sweet  potatoes,  and  many  other 
half-tropical  products,  which  the  bright  sun  of  his  own  land  offers 
him  in  such  abundance,  with  a  new  relish  ;  and  putting  these  and 
the  delicious  fruits,  which  are  so  cheaply  and  abundantly  produced, 
into  the  scale  against  the  smooth  lawns  and  the  deep  verdure  of 
Great  Britain,  he  is  more  than  consoled  for  the  superiority  of  the 
latter  country  in  these  finer  elements  of  mere  embellishment. 

In  the  useful  branches  of  gardening,  the  last  ten  years  have 
largely  increased  the  culture  of  all  the  fine  culinary  vegetables,  and 
our  markets  are  now  almost  every  where  abundantly  supplied  with 
them.  The  tomato,  the  egg-plant,  salsify,  and  okra,  from  being 
rarities  have  become  almost  universally  cultivated.  The  tomato 
affords  a  singular  illustration  of  the  fact  that  an  article  of  food  not 
generally  relished  at  first,  if  its  use  is  founded  in  its  adaptation  to 
the  nature  of  the  climate,  may  speedily  come  to  be  considered  in- 
dispensable to  a  whole  nation.  Fifteen  years  ago  it  would  have  been 
difficult  to  find  this  vegetable  for  sale  in  five  market  towns  in 
America.  At  the  present  moment,  it  is  grown  almost  every  where, 
and  there  are  hundreds  of  acres  devoted  to  its  culture  for  the  supply 
of  the  New- York  market  alone.  "We  are  certain  that  no  people  at 
the  present  moment,  use  so  large  a  variety  of  fine  vegetables  as  the 
people  of  the  United  States.  Their  culture  is  so  remarkably  easy, 
and  the  product  so  abundant. 

We  have  no  means  of  knowing  the  precise  annual  value  of  the 
products  of  the  orchards  of  the  United  States.  The  Commissioner 
of  Patents,  from  the  statistics  in  his  possession,  estimates  it  at  ten 


STATE  AND  PROSPECTS  OF  HORTICULTURE. 


79 


nations  of  dollars.  The  planting  of  orchards  and  fruit-gardens 
wi*3nn  the  last  five  years  has  been  more  than  three  times  as  great  as 
in  any  previous  five  years,  and  as  soon  as  these  trees  come  into 
bearing,  the  annual  value  of  their  products  cannot  fall  short  of 
twenty-five  or  thirty  millions  of  dollars.  American  apples  are  uni- 
versally admitted  to  be  the  finest  in  the  world,  and  our  pippins  and 
Baldwins  have  taken  their  place  among  the  regular  exports  of  the 
country.  In  five  years  more  we  confidently  expect  to  see  our  fine 
late  pears  taking  the  same  rank,  and  from  the  great  success  which 
has  begun  to  attend  their  extensive  culture  in  "Western  New- York, 
there  can  be  little  doubt  that  that  region  will  come  to  be  considered 
the  centre  of  the  pear  culture  of  this  country. 

The  improvements  of  the  last  few  years  in  fruit-tree  culture  have 
been  very  great,  and  are  very  easily  extended.  From  having  been 
pursued  in  the  most  careless  and  slovenly  manner  possible,  it  is  now 
perhaps  the  best  understood  of  any  branch  of  horticulture  in 
America.  The  importance  of  deep  trenching,  mulching,  a  correct 
system  of  pruning,  and  the  proper  manures,  have  come  to  be  pretty 
generally  acknowledged,  so  that  our  horticultural  shows,  especially, 
and  the  larger  markets,  to  a  certain  extent,  begin  to  show  decided 
evidences  of  progress  in  the  art  of  raising  good  fruits.  Our  nursery- 
men and  amateurs,  after  having  made  trial  of  hundreds  of  highly 
rated  foreign  sorts,  and  found  but  few  of  them  really  valuable,  are 
turning  their  attention  to  the  propagation  and  dissemination  of 
those  really  good,  and  to  the  increase  of  the  number  mainly  by 
selections  from  the  numerous  good  native  varieties  now  springing 
into  existence. 

The  greatest  acquisition  to  the  amateur's  fruit  garden,  within  the 
last  few  years,  has  been  the  cold  vinery, — a  cheap  glass  structure  by 
the  aid  of  which,  without  any  fire  heat,  the  finest  foreign  grapes  can 
be  fully  ripened,  almost  to  the  extreme  northern  parts  of  the  Union. 
These  vineries  have  astonishingly  multiplied  within  the  last  four 
years,  so  that  instead  of  being  confined  to  the  gardens  of  the  very 
wealthy,  they  are  now  to  be  found  in  the  environs  of  all  our  larger 
towns — and  a  necessary  accompaniment  to  every  considerable 
country  place.  As  a  matter  of  luxury,  in  fruit  gardening,  they  per- 
haps afford  more  satisfaction  and  enjoyment  than  any  other  single 


80 


HORTICULTURE. 


feature  whatever,  and  the  annual  value  of  the  grapes,  even  to  the 
market-gardener,  is  a  very  satisfactory  interest  on  the  outlay  made 
in  the  necessary  building. 

Now  that  the  point  is  well  settled  that  the  foreign  grapes  cannot 
be  successfully  grown  without  the  aid  of  glass,  our  most  enterprising 
experimentalists  are  busy  with  the  production  of  new  hybrid  varie- 
ties— the  product  of  a  cross  between  the  former  and  our  native  vari- 
eties— which  shall  give  us  fine  flavor  and  adaptation  to  open  air 
culture,  and  some  results  lately  made  public,  would  lead  us  to  the 
belief  that  the  desideratum  may  soon  be  attained.  In  the  mean 
time  the  native  grapes,  or  at  least  one  variety — the  Catawba — has 
taken  its  rank — no  longer  disputed — as  a  fine  wine  grape  ;  and  the 
hundreds  of  acres  of  vineyards  which  now  line  the  banks  of  the 
Ohio,  and  the  rapid  sale  of  their  vintages,  show  conclusively  that  we 
can  at  least  make  the  finest  light  wines  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic. 

In  ornamental  gardening,  many  and  beautiful  are  the  changes 
of  the  last  few  years.  Cottages  and  villas  begin  to  embroider  the 
countiy  in  all  directions,  and  the  neighborhood  of  our  three  or  four 
largest  cities  begins  to  vie  with  the  environs  of  any  of  the  old  world 
capitals  in  their  lovely  smroundings  of  beautiful  gardens  and  grounds. 
The  old  and  formal  style  of  design,  common  until  within  a  few  years, 
is  almost  displaced  by  a  more  natural  and  graceful  style  of  curved 
fines,  and  graceful  plantations.  The  taste  for  ornamental  planting 
has  extended  so  largely,  that  much  as  the  nurseries  have  increased, 
they  are  not  able  to  meet  the  demand  for  rare  trees  and  shrubs — 
especially  evergreens — so  that  hundreds  of  thousands  of  fine  species 
are  annually  imported  from  abroad.  Though  by  no  means  so  favor- 
able a  climate  for  lawns  as  that  of  England,  ours  is  a  far  better  one 
for  deciduous  trees,  and  our  park  and  pleasure-ground  scenery  (if 
we  except  evergreens)  is  marked  even  now  by  a  greater  variety  of 
foliage  than  one  easily  finds  in  any  other  temperate  climate. 

A  peculiar  feature  of  what  may  be  called  the  sceneiy  of  orna- 
mental grounds  in  this  country,  at  the  present  moment,  is,  as  we 
have  before  remarked,  to  be  found  in  our  rural  cemeteries.  They 
vary  in  size,  from  a  few  to  three  or  four  hundred  acres,  and  in  char- 
acter, from  pretty  shrubberies  and  pleasure-grounds  to  wild  sylvan 
groves,  or  superb  parks  and  pleasure-grounds — laid  out  and  kept  in 


STATS  AND  PROSPECTS  OF  HORTICULTURE. 


81 


the  highest  style  of  the  art  of  landscape  gardening.  There  is  noth- 
ing in  any  part  of  the  world  which  equals  in  all  respects,  at  the 
present  moment,  Greenwood  Cemetery,  near  New- York — though  it 
has  many  rivals.  We  may  give  some  idea  of  the  extent  and  high 
keeping  of  this  lovely  resting-place  of  the  dead,  by  saying  that  about 
three  hundred  persons  were  constantly  employed  in  the  care,  im- 
provement, and  preservation  of  its  grounds,  this  season.  The  Ceme- 
tery of  the  Evergreens,  also  near  New-York,  Mount  Auburn  at  Bos- 
ton, Laurel  Hill  at  Philadelphia,  and  the  cemeteries  of  Cincinnati, 
Albany,  Salem,  and  several  others  of  the  larger  towns,  are  scarcely 
less  interesting  in  many  respects — while  all  have  features  of  interest 
and  beauty  peculiar  to  themselves. 

From  cemeteries  we  naturally  rise  to  public  parks  and  gardens. 
As  yet  our  countrymen  have  almost  entirely  overlooked  the  sanitary 
value  and  importance  of  these  breathing  places  for  large  cities,  or 
the  powerful  part  which  they  may  be  made  to  play  in  refining,  ele- 
vating, and  affording  enjoyment  to  the  people  at  large.  A  more 
rapid  and  easy  communication  with  Europe  is,  however,  beginning 
to  awaken  us  to  a  sense  of  our  vast  inferiority  in  this  respect,  and 
the  inhabitants  of  our  largest  cities  are  beginning  to  take  a  lively 
interest  in  the  appropriation  of  sufficient  space — while  space  may  be 
obtained — for  this  beautiful  and  useful  purpose.  The  government 
has  wisely  taken  the  lead  in  this  movement,  by  undertaking  the  im- 
provement (on  a  comprehensive  plan  given  by  us)  of  a  large  piece 
of  public  ground — 150  acres  or  more — lying  almost  in  the  heart  of 
Washington.  A  commencement  has  been  made  this  season,  and 
we  hope  the  whole  may  be  completed  in  the  course  of  three  or  four 
years.  The  plan  embraces  four  or  five  miles  of  carriage-drive — 
walks  for  pedestrians — ponds  of  water,  fountains  and  statues — pic- 
turesque groupings  of  trees  and  shrubs,  and  a  complete  collection  of 
all  the  trees  that  belong  to  North  America.  It  will,  if  carried  out 
as  it  has  been  undertaken,  undoubtedly  give  a  great  impetus  to  the 
popular  taste  in  landscape-gardening  and  the  culture  of  ornamental 
trees ;  and  as  the  climate  of  Washington  is  one  peculiarly  adapted 
to  this  purpose— 4his  national  park  may  be  made  a  sylvan  museum 
such  as  it  would  be  difficult  to  equal  in  beauty  and  variety  in  any 
part  of  the  world. 

6 


82 


HORTICULTURE. 


As  a  part  of  the  same  movement,  we  must  not  forget  to  mention 
that  the  city  of  New- York  has  been  empowered  by  the  State  legis- 
lature to  buy  160  acres  of  land,  admirably  situated  in  the  upper 
part  of  the  city,  and  improve  and  embellish  it  for  a  public  park.  A 
similar  feeling  is  on  foot  in  Philadelphia,  where  the  Gratz  estate  and 
the  Lemon  Hill  estate  are,  we  understand,  likely  to  be  purchased  by 
the  city  for  this  purpose.  It  is  easy  to  see  from  these  signs  of  the 
times,  that  gardening — both  as  a  practical  art  and  an  art  of  taste — 
is  advancing  side  by  side  with  the  steady  and  rapid  growth  of  the 
country — and  we  congratulate  our  readers  that  they  live  in  an  age 
and  nation  where  the  whole  tendency  is  so  healthful  and  beautiful, 
and  where  man's  destiny  seems  to  grow  brighter  and  better  every 
day. 


XIII. 


AMERICAN  vs.  BRITISH  HORTICULTURE. 

June,  1852. 

WHEN  a  man  goes  into  a  country  without  understanding  its 
language — merely  as  a  traveller — he  is  likely  to  comprehend 
little  of  the  real  character  of  that  country ;  when  he  settles  in  it, 
and  persists  in  not  understanding  its  language,  manners,  or  customs, 
and  stubbornly  adheres  to  his  own,  there  is  little  probability  of 
his  ever  being  a  contented  or  successful  citizen.  In  such  a  country 
as  this,  its  very  spirit  of  liberty  and  progress,  its  freedom  from  old 
prejudices,  and  the  boundless  life  and  energy  that  make  the  pulses 
of  its  true  citizens — either  native  or  adopted — beat  with  health  and 
exultation,  only  serve  to  vex  and  chafe  that  alien  in  a  strange  land, 
who  vainly  tries  to  live  in  the  new  world,  with  all  his  old-world 
prejudices  and  customs. 

We  are  led  into  this  train  of  reflection  by  being  constantly  re- 
minded, as  we  are  in  our  various  journeyings  through  the  country, 
of  the  heavy  impediment  existing — the  lion  lying  in  the  path  of  our 
progress  in  horticulture,  all  over  the  country,  in  the  circumstance 
that  our  practical  gardening  is  almost  entirely  in  the  hands  of  for- 
eign gardeners.  The  statistics  of  the  gardening  class,  if  carefully 
collected,  would,  we  imagine,  show  that  not  three  per  cent,  of  all 
the  working  gardeners  in  the  United  States,  are  either  native  or 
naturalized  citizens.  They  are,  for  the  most  part,  natives  of  Ireland, 
with  a  few  Scotchmen,  and  a  still  smaller  proportion  of  English  and 
Germans. 

We  suppose  we  have  had  as  much  to  do,  for  the  last  sixteen  or 


84 


HORTICULTURE. 


eighteen  years,  with  the  employment  of  gardeners,  as  almost  any 
person  in  America,  and  we  never  remember  an  instance  of  an  Ame- 
rican offering  himself  as  a  professional  gardener.  Our  own  rural 
workmen  confine  themselves  wholly  to  the  farm,  knowing  nothing, 
or  next  to  nothing,  of  the  more  refined  and  careful  operations  of  the 
garden.  We  may,  therefore,  thank  foreigners  for  nearly  all  the 
gardening  skill  that  we  have  in  the  country,  and  we  are  by  no 
means  inclined  to  underrate  the  value  of  then  labors.  Among  them 
there  are,  as  we  well  know,  many'  most  excellent  men,  who  deserve 
the  highest  commendation  for  skill,  taste,  and  adaptation — though, 
on  the  other  hand,  there  are  a  great  many  who  have  been  gar- 
deners (if  we  may  trust  their  word  for  it),  to  the  Duke  of  , 

and  the  Marquis  of  ,  but  who  would  make  us  pity  his  grace  or 

his  lordship,  if  we  could  believe  he  ever  depended  on  Paddy  for 
any  other  exotics  than  potatoes  and  cabbages. 

But  taking  it  for  granted  that  our  gardeners  are  wholly  foreign- 
ers, and  mostly  British,  they  all  have  the  disadvantage  of  coming 
to  us,  even  the  best  educated  of  them,  with  their  practice  wholly 
founded  upon  a  climate  the  very  opposite  of  ours.  Finding  how 
little  the  "natives"  know  of  their  favorite  art,  and  being,  therefore, 
by  no  means  disposed  to  take  advice  of  them,  or  unlearn  any  of 
then  old-world  knowledge  here,  are  they  not,  as  a  class,  placed  very 
much  in  the  condition  of  the  aliens  in  a  foreign  country,  we  have 
.  just  alluded  to,  who  refuse,  for  the  most  part,  either  to  learn  its  lan- 
guage, or  adapt  themselves  to  the  institutions  of  that  country  ?  We 
think  so  ;  for  in  fact,  no  two  languages  can  be  more  different  than 
the  gardening  tongues  of  England  and  America.  The  ugly  words 
of  English  gardening,  are  damp,  wet,  want  of  sunshine,  canker.  Our 
bugbears  are  drought,  hot  sunshine,  great  stimulus  to  growth,  and 
blights  and  diseases  resulting  from  sudden  checks.  An  English 
gardener,  therefore,  is  very  naturally  taught,  as  soon  as  he  can  lisp, 
to  avoid  cool  and  damp  aspects,  to  nestle  like  a  lizard,  on  the  sunny 
side  of  south  walls,  to  be  perpetually  guarding  the  roots  of  plants 
against  wet,  and  continually  opening  the  heads  of  his  trees  and 
shrubs,  by  thinning  out  the  branches,  to  let  the  light  in.  He  raises 
even  his  flower-beds,  to  shed  off  the  too  abundant  rain ;  trains  his 
fruit-trees  upon  trellises,  to  expose  every  leaf  to  the  sunshine,  and  is 


AMERICAN  VS.  BRITISH  HORTICULTURE. 


85 


continually  endeavoring  to  extract  "  sunshine  from  cucumbers,"  in 
a  climate  where  nothing  grows  golden  and  ripe  without  coaxing  na- 
ture's smiles  under  glass-houses ! 

For  theorists,  who  know  little  of  human  nature,  it  is  easy  to 
answer. — "  well,  when  British  gardeners  come  to  a  climate  totally 
different  from  their  own — where  sunshine  is  so  plenty  that  they  can 
raise  melons  and  peaches  as  easily  as  they  once  did  cauliflowers 
and  gooseberries — why,  they  will  open  their  eyes  to  such  glaring 
facts,  and  alter  their  practice  accordingly."  Very  good  reasoning, 
indeed.  But  anybody  who  knows  the  effect  of  habit  and  education 
on  character,  knows  that  it  is  as  difficult  for  an  Irishman  to  make 
due  allowance  for  American  sunshine  and  heat,  as  for  a  German  to 
forget  sour-krout,  or  a  Yankee  to  feel  an  instinctive  reverence  for 
royalty.  There  is  a  whole  lifetime  of  education,  national  habit, 
daily  practice,  to  overcome,  and  reason  seldom  has  complete  sway 
over  the  minds  of  men  rather  in  the  habit  of  practising  a  system, 
than  referring  to  principles,  in  their  every-day  labors. 

Bapid  as  the  progress  of  horticulture  is  at  the  present  time  in 
the  United  States,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  it  is  immensely  re- 
tarded by  this  disadvantage,  that  all  our  gardeners  have  been  edu- 
cated in  the  school  of  British  horticulture.  It  is  their  misfortune, 
since  they  have  the  constant  obstacle  to  contend  with,  of  not  under- 
standing the  necessities  of  our  climate,  and  therefore  endeavoring  to 
carry  out  a  practice  admirably  well  suited  where  they  learned  it — 
but  most  ill  suited  to  the  country  where  they  are  to  practise  it.  It 
is  our  misfortune,  because  we  suffer  doubly  by  their  mistakes — first, 
in  the  needless  money  they  spend  in  their  failures — and  second,  in 
the  discouragement  they  throw  upon  the  growing  taste  for  garden- 
ing among  us.  A  gentleman  who  is  himself  ignorant  of  gardening, 
establishes  himself  at  a  country-seat.  He  engages  the  best  gar- 
dener he  can  find.  The  latter  fails  in  one  half  that  he  attempts, 
and  the  proprietor,  knowing  nothing  of  the  reason  of  the  failures, 
attributes  to  the  difficulties  of  the  thing  itself,  what  should  be  attri- 
buted to  the  want  of  knowledge,  or  experience  of  the  soil  and  cli- 
mate, in  the  gardener. 

A  case  of  this  kind,  which  has  recently  come  under  our  notice, 
is  too  striking  an  illustration  not  to  be  worth  mentioning  here.  In 


86 


HORTICULTURE. 


one  of  our  large  cities  south  of  New- York,  where  the  soil  and  cli 
mate  are  particularly  fine  for  fruit-growing — where  the  most  deli- 
cious peaches,  pears,  and  apricots  grow  almost  as  easily  as  the  apple 
at  the  north,  it  was  confidently  stated  to  us  by  several  amateurs,  that 
the  foreign  grape  could  not  be  cultivated  in  vineries  there — "  several 
had  tried  it  and  failed."  We  were,  of  course,  as  incredulous  as  if 
we  had  been  told  that  the  peach  would  not  ripen  in  Persia,  or  the 
fig  in  Spain.  But  our  incredulity  was  answered  by  a  promise  to 
show  us  the  next  day,  that  the  thing  had  been  well  tried. 

We  were  accordingly  shown :  and  the  exhibition,  as  we  sus- 
pected, amounted  to  this.  The  vineries  were  in  all  cases  placed  and 
treated,  in  that  bright,  powerful  sunshine,  just  as  they  would  have 
been  placed  and  treated  in  Britain — that  is,  facing  due  south,  and 
generally  under  the  shelter  of  a  warm  bank.  Besides  this,  not  half 
provision  enough  was  made,  either  for  ventilation  or  water.  The 
result  was  perfectly  natural.  The  vines  were  burned  up  by  excess 
of  light  and  heat,  and  starved  for  want  of  air  and  water.  We  pointed 
out  how  the  same  money  (no  small  amount,  for  one  of  the  ranges 
was  200  feet  long),  applied  in  building  a  span-roofed  house,  on  a 
perfectly  open  exposure,  and  running  on  a  north  and  south,  instead 
of  an  east  and  west  line,  and  treated  by  a  person  who  would  open 
his  eyes  to  the  fact,  that  he  was  no  longer  gardening  in  the  old,  but 
the  new  world — would  have  given  tons  of  grapes,  where  only  pounds 
had  been  obtained. 

The  same  thing  is  seen  on  a  smaller  scale,  in  almost  every  fruit 
garden  that  is  laid  out.  Tender  fruit  trees  are  planted  on  the  south 
side  of  fences  or  walls,  for  sun,  when  they  ought  always  to  be  put  on 
the  north,  for  shade ;  and  foliage  is  constantly  thinned  out,  to  let 
the  sun  in  to  the  fruit,  when  it  ought  to  be  encouraged  to  grow 
thicker,  to  protect  it  from  the  solar  rays.* 

But,  in  fact,  the  whole  routine  of  practice  in  American  and 
British  horticulture,  is,  and  must  be  essentially  different.  We  give 
to  Boston,  Salem,  and  the  eastern  cities,  the  credit  of  bearing  off  the 

*  If  we  were  asked  to  say  what  practice,  founded  on  principle,  had  been 
most  beneficially  introduced  into  our  horticulture — we  should  answer 
mulching — mulching  suggested  by  the  need  of  moisture  in  our  dry  climate, 
tb  e  difficulty  of  preserving  it  about  the  roots  of  plante. 


AMERICAN  VS  BRITISH  HORTICULTURE. 


87 


palm  of  horticultural  skill ;  and  we  must  not  conceal  the  fact,  that 
the  superiority  of  the  fruits  and  flowers  there,  in  a  climate  more  un- 
favorable than  that  of  the  middle  States,  has  been  owing,  not  to  the 
superiority  of  the  foreign  gardeners  which  they  employ — but  to  the 
greater  knowledge  and  interest  in  horticulture  taken  there  by  the 
proprietors  of  gardens  themselves.  There  is  really  a  native  school 
of  horticulture  about  Boston,  and  even  foreign  gardeners  there  are 
obliged  to  yield  to  its  influence. 

We  have  spoken  out  our  thoughts  on  this  subject  plainly,  in  the 
hope  of  benefiting  both  gardeners  and  employers  among  us.  Every 
right-minded  and  intelligent  foreign  gardener,  will  agree  with  us  in 
deploring  the  ignorance  of  many  of  his  brethren,  and  we  hope  will, 
by  his  influence  and  example,  help  to  banish  it.  The  evil  we  com- 
plain of  has  grown  to  be  a  very  serious  one,  and  it  can  only  be 
cured  by  continually  urging  upon  gardeners  that  British  horticulture 
will  not  suit  America,  without  great  modification,  and  by  continually 
insisting  upon  employers  learning  for  themselves,  the  principles  of 
gardening  as  it  must  be  practised,  to  obtain  any  good  results.  This 
sowing  good  seed,  and  gathering  tares,  is  an  insult  to  Providence,  in 
a  country  that,  in  its  soil  and  climate,  invites  a  whole  population  to 
a  feast  of  Flora  and  Pomona. 


XIV. 


ON  THE  DRAPERY  OF  COTTAGES  AND  GARDENS. 

February,  1849. 

OUR  readers  very  well  know  that,  in  the  country,  whenever  any 
thing  especially  tasteful  is  to  be  done,  when  a  church  is  to  be 
"  dressed  for  Christmas,"  a  public  hah  festooned  for  a  fair,  or  a  sa- 
loon decorated  for  a  horticultural  show,  we  have  to  entreat  the  assist- 
ance of  the  fairer  half  of  humanity.  All  that  is  most  graceful  and 
charming  in  this  way,  owes  its  existence  to  female  hands.  Over  the 
heavy  exterior  of  man's  handiwork,  they  weave  a  fairy-like  web  of  en- 
chantment, which,  like  our  Indian  summer  haae  upon  autumn  hills, 
spiritualizes  and  makes  poetical,  whatever  of  rude  form  or  rough 
outlines  may  lie  beneath. 

Knowing  all  this,  as  we  well  do,  we  write  this  leader  especially 
for  the  eyes  of  the  ladies.  They  are  naturally  mistresses  of  the  art 
of  embellishment.  Men  are  so  stupid,  in  the  main,  about  these  mat- 
ters, that,  if  the  majority  of  them  had  their  own  way,  there  would 
neither  be  a  ringlet,  nor  a  ruffle,  a  wreath,  nor  a  nosegay  left  in  the 
world.  All  would  be  as  stiff  and  as  meaningless  as  their  own 
meagre  black  coats,  without  an  atom  of  the  graceful  or  romantic 
about  them  ;  nothing  to  awaken  a  spark  of  interest  or  stir  a  chord 
of  feeling ;  nothing,  in  short,  but  downright,  commonplace  matter- 
of-fact.  And  they  undertake  to  defend  it — the  logicians — on  the 
ground  of  utility  and  the  spirit  of  the  age !  As  if  trees  did  not 
bear  lovely  blossoms  as  well  as  good  fruit ;  as  if  the  sun  did  not 
give  us  rainbows  as  well  as  light  and  warmth ;  as  if  there  were  not 
still  mocking-birds  and  nightingales  as  well  as  ducks  and  turkeys. 


ON  THE  DRAPERY  OF  COTTAGES  AND  GARDENS.  89 


But  enough  of  that.  You  do  not  need  any  arguments  to  prove 
that  grace  is  a  quality  as  positive  as  electro-magnetism.  Would 
that  you  could  span  the  world  with  it  as  quickly  as  Mr.  Morse  with 
his  telegraph.  To  come  to  the  point,  we  want  to  talk  a  little  with 
you  about  what  we  call  the  drapery  of  cottages  and  gardens ;  about 
those  beautiful  vines,  and  climbers,  and  creepers,  which  nature  made 
on  pui-pose  to  cover  up  every  thing  ugly,  and  to  heighten  the  charm 
of  every  thing  pretty  and  picturesque.  In  short,  we  want  your  aid 
and  assistance  in  dressing,  embellishing,  and  decorating,  not  for  a 
single  holiday,  fair,  or  festival,  but  for  years  and  for  ever,  the  out- 
sides  of  our  simple  cottages,  and  country  homes ;  wreathing  them 
about  with  such  perennial  festoons  of  verdure,  and  starring  them 
over  with  such  bouquets  of  delicious  odor,  that  your  husbands  and 
brothers  would  no  more  think  of  giving  up  such  houses,  than  they 
would  of  abandoning  you  (as  that  beggarly  Greek,  Theseus,  did  the 
lovely  Ariadne)  to  the  misery  of  solitude  on  a  desolate  island. 

And  what  a  difference  a  little  of  this  kind  of  rural  drapery, 
tastefully  arranged,  makes  in  the  aspect  of  a  cottage  or  farm  house 
in  the  countiy !  At  the  end  of  the  village,  for  instance,  is  that  old- 
fashioned  stone  house,  which  was  the  homestead  of  Tim  Steady. 
First  and  last,  that  family  lived  there  two  generations ;  and  every 
thing  about  them  had  a  look  of  some  comfort.  But  with  the  ex- 
ception of  a  coat  of  paint,  which  the  house  got  once  in  ten  years, 
nothing  was  ever  done  to  give  the  place  the  least  appearance  of 
taste.  An  old,  half  decayed  ash-tree  stood  near  the  south  door,  and 
a  few  decrepit  and  worn-out  apple-trees  behind  the  house.  But 
there  was  not  a  lilac  bush,  nor  a  syringo,  not  a  rose-bush  nor  a  honey- 
suckle about  the  whole  premises.  You  would  never  suppose  that 
a  spark  of  affection  for  nature,  or  a  gleam  of  feeling  for  grace  or 
beauty,  in  any  shape,  ever  dawned  within  or  around  the  house. 

Well,  five  years  ago  the  place  was  put  up  for  sale.  There  were 
some  things  to  recommend  it.  There  was  a  "  good  well  of  water ;" 
the  house  was  in  excellent  repair ;  and  the  location  was  not  a  bad 
one.  But,  though  many  went  to  see  it,  and  "liked  the  place  toler- 
ably well,"  yet  there  seemed  to  be  a  want  of  heart  about  it,  that 
made  it  unattractive,  and  prevented  people  from  buying  it. 

It  was  a  good  while  in  the  market ;  but  at  last  it  fell  into  the 


90 


HORTICULTURE. 


hands  of  the  Widow  Winning  and  her  two  daughters.  They  bought 
it  at  a  bargain,  and  must  have  foreseen  its  capabilities. 

What  that  house  and  place  is  now,  it  would  do  your  heart  good 
to  see.  A  porch  of  rustic  trellis-work  was  built  over  the  front  door- 
way, simple  and  pretty  hoods  upon  brackets  over  the  windows,  the 
door-yard  was  all  laid  out  afresh,  the  worn-out  apple-trees  were  dug 
up,  a  nice  bit  of  lawn  made  around  the  house,  and  pleasant  groups 
of  shrubbery  (mixed  with  two  or  three  graceful  elms)  planted  about 
it.  But,  most  of  all,  what  fixes  the  attention,  is  the  lovely  profusion 
of  flowering  vines  that  enrich  the  old  house,  and  transform  what 
was  a  soulless  habitation,  into  a  home  that  captivates  all  eyes.  Even 
the  old  and  almost  leafless  ash-tree  is  almost  overrun  with  a  creeper, 
which  is  stuck  full  of  gay  trumpets  all  summer,  that  seem  to  blow 
many  a  strain  of  gladness  to  the  passers  by.  How  many  sorts  of 
honeysuckle,  clematises,  roses,  etc.,  there  are  on  wall  or  trellis  about 
that  cottage,  is  more  than  we  can  tell.  Certain  it  is,  however,  that 
half  the  village  walks  past  that  house  of  a  summer  night,  and  in- 
wardly thanks  the  fair  inmates  for  the  fragrance  that  steals  through 
the  air  in  its  neighborhood  :  and  no  less  certain  is  it  that  this  house 
is  now  the  "  admired  of  all  admirers,"  and  that  the  Widow  Winning 
has  twice  refused  double  the  sum  it  went  begging  at  when  it  was 
only  the  plain  and  nieagre  home  of  Tim  Steady. 

Many  of  you  in  the  country,  as  we  well  know,  are  compelled  by 
circumstances  to  live  in  houses  which  some  one  else  built,  or  which 
have,  by  ill-luck,  an  ugly  expression  in  every  board  or  block  of  stone, 
from  the  sill  of  the  door  to  the  peak  of  the  roof.  Paint  won't  hide 
it,  nor  cleanliness  disguise  it,  however  goodly  and  agreeable  things 
they  are.  But  vines  will  do  both ;  or,  what  is  better,  they  will,  with 
their  lovely,  graceful  shapes,  and  rich  foliage  and  flowers,  give  a  new 
character  to  the  whole  exterior.  However  ugly  the  wall,  however  bald 
the  architecture,  only  give  it  this  fair  drapery  of  leaf  and  blossom, 
and  nature  will  touch  it  at  once  with  something  of  grace  and  beauty, 

"  What  are  our  favorite  vines  ? "  This  is  what  you  would  ask 
of  us,  and  this  is  what  we  are  most  anxious  to  tell  you  ;  as  we  see, 
already,  that  no  sooner  will  the  spring  open,  than  you  will  imme- 
diately set  about  the  good  work. 

Our  two  favorite  vines,  then,  for  the  adornment  of  cottages,  i» 


ON  THE  DRAPERY  OF  COTTAGES  AND  GARDENS.  91 

the  Northern  States,  are  the  double  Prairie  Hose,  and  the  Chinese 
Wistaria.  Why  we  like  these  best  is,  because  they  have  the  greatest 
number  of  good  qualities  to  recommend  them.  In  the  first  place, 
they  are  hardy,  thriving  in  all  soils  and  exposures ;  in  the  second 
place,  they  are  luxuriant  in  their  growth,  and  produce  an  effect  in 
a  very  short  time — after  which,  they  may  be  kept  to  the  limits  of  a 
single  pillar  on  the  piazza,  or  trained  over  the  whole  side  of  a  cot- 
tage ;  in  the  last  place,  they  are  rich  in  the  foliage,  and  beautiful  in 
the  blossom. 

Now  there  are  many  vines  more  beautiful  than  these  in  some 
respects,  but  not  for  this  purpose,  and  taken  altogether.  For  cottage 
drapery,  a  popular  vine  must  be  one  that  will  grow  anywhere,  with 
little  care,  and  must  need  no  shelter,  and  the  least  possible  attention, 
beyond  seeing  that  it  has  something  to  run  on,  and  a  looking  over, 
pruning,  and  tying  up  once  a  year — say  in  early  spring.  This  is 
precisely  the  character  of  these  two  vines ;  and  hence  we  think  they 
deserve  to  be  planted  from  one  end  of  the  Union  to  the  other.  They 
will  give  the  greatest  amount  of  beauty,  with  the  least  care,  and  in 
the  greatest  number  of  places. 

The  Prairie  roses  are,  no  doubt,  known  to  most  of  you.  They 
have  been  raised  from  seeds  of  the  wild  rose  of  Michigan,  which 
clambers  over  high  trees  in  the  forests,  and  are  remarkable  for  the 
profusion  of  their  very  double  flowers  (so  double,  that  they  always 
look  like  large  pouting  buds,  rather  than  full-blown  roses),  and 
their  extreme  hardiness  and  luxuriance  of  growth, — shoots  of  twenty 
feet,  in  a  single  year,  being  a  not  uncommon  sight.  Among  all  the 
sorts  yet  known,  the  Queen  of  the  Prairies  (deep  pink),  and  Superba 
(nearly  white),  are  the  best. 

We  wish  we  could  give  our  fair  readers  a  glance  at  a  Chinese 
Wistaria  in  our  grounds,  as  it  looked  last  April.  It  covered  the 
side  of  a  small  cottage  completely.  If  they  will  imagine  a  space  of 
10  by  20  feet,  completely  draped  with  Wistaria  shoots,  on  which 
hung,  thick  as  in  a  flower  pattern,  at  least  500  clusters  of  the  most 
delicate  blossoms,  of  a  tint  between  pearl  and  lilac,  each  bunch  of 
bloom  shaped  like  that  of  a  locust  tree,  but  eight  inches  to  a  foot 
long,  and  most  gracefully  pendant  from  branches  just  starting  into 
tender  green  foliage  ;  if,  we  say,  they  could  see  all  this,  as  we  saw  it, 


HORTICULTURE. 


and  not  utter  exclamations  of  delight,  then  they  deserve  to  be  classed 
with  those  women  of  the  nineteenth  century,  who  are  thoroughly 
"  fit  for  sea-captains." 

For  a  cottage  climber,  that  will  take  care  of  itself  better  than 
almost  any  other,  and  embower  door  and  windows  with  rich  foliage 
and  flowers,  take  the  common  Boursault  Rose.  Long  purplish 
Bhoots,  foliage  always  fresh '  and  abundant,  and  bright  purplish 
blossoms  in  June,  as  thick  as  stars  in  a  midnight  sky, — all  belong 
to  this  plant.  Perhaps  the  richest  and  prettiest  Boursault,  is  the 
one  called  by  the  nurserymen  Amadis,  or  Elegans ;  the  flower  a 
bright  cherry-color,  becoming  crimson  purple  as  it  fades,  with  a 
delicate  stripe  of  white  through  an  occasional  petal. 

There  are  two  very  favorite  climbers  that  belong  properly  to 
the  middle  States,  as  they  are  a  little  tender,  and  need  protection 
to  the  North  or  East.  One  of  them  is  the  Japan  Honeysuckle 
(Lonicera  japonica,  or  flexuosa*) ;  the  species  with  very  dark,  half 
evergreen  leaves,  and  a  profusion  of  lovely  delicate  white  and  fawn- 
colored  blossoms.  It  is  the  queen  of  all  honeysuckles  for  cottage 
walls,  or  veranda  pillars ;  its  foliage  is  always  so  rich ;  it  is  entirely 
free  from  the  white  aphis  (which  is  the  pest  of  the  old  sorts),  and  it 
blooms  (as  soon  as  the  plant  gets  strong)  nearly  the  whole  summer, 
affording  a  perpetual  feast  of  beauty  and  fragance.  The  other,  is 
the  Sweet-scented  Clematis  (<7.  Jlammula),  the  very  type  of  deli- 
cacy and  grace,  whose  flowers  are  broidered  like  pale  stars  over  the 
whole  vine  in  midsummer,  and  whose  perfume  is  the  most  spiritual, 
impalpable,  and  yet  far-spreading  of  all  vegetable  odors. 

All  the  honeysuckles  are  beautiful  in  the  garden,  though  none 
of  them,  except  the  foregoing,  and  what  are  familiarly  called  the 
"  trumpet  honeysuckles,"  are  fit  for  the  walls  of  a  cottage,  because 
they  harbor  insects.  Nothing,  however,  can  well  be  prettier  than 
the  Red  and  Yellow  Trumpet  Honeysuckles,  when  planted  together 
and  allowed  to  interweave  their  branches,  contrasting  the  delicate 
straw-color  of  the  flower  tubes  of  one,  with  the  deep  coral-red  hue  of 
those  of  the  other ;  and  they  bloom  with  a  welcome  prodigality  from 
April  to  December. 

*  The  "  Chinese  twining,"  of  some  gardens. 


ON  THE  DRAPERY  OF  COTTAGES  AND  GARDENS. 


93 


Where  you  want  to  produce  a  bold  and  picturesque  effect  with 
a  vine,  nothing  will  do  it  more  rapidly  and  completely  than  our 
native  grapes.  They  are  precisely  adapted  to  the  porch  of  the  farm- 
house, or  to  cover  any  building,  or  part  of  a  building,  where  expres- 
sion of  strength  rather  than  of  delicacy  is  sought  after.  Then  you 
will  find  it  easy  to  smooth  away  all  objections  from  the  practical 
soul  of  the  farmer,  by  offering  him  a  prospect  of  ten  bushels  of  fine 
Isabella  or  Catawba  grapes  a  year,  which  you,  in  your  innermost 
heart,  do  not  value  half  so  much  as  five  or  ten  months  of  beautiful 
drapery ! 

Next  to  the  grape-vine,  the  boldest  and  most  striking  of  hardy 
vines  is  the  Dutchman's  pipe  (Aristolochia  sipho).  It  is  a  grand 
twining  climber,  and  will  canopy  over  a  large  arbor  in  a  short  time, 
and  make  a  shade  under  it  so  dense  that  not  a  ray  of  pure  sunshine 
will  ever  find  its  way  through.  Its  gigantic  circular  leaves,  of  a 
rich  green,  form  masses  such  as  delight  a  painter's  eye, — so  broad 
and  effective  are  they ;  and  as  for  its  flowers,  which  are  about  an 
inch  and  a  half  long, — why,  they  are  so  like  a  veritable  meer- 
schaum— the  pipe  of  a  true  Dutchman  from  "  Faderland" — that  you 
cannot  but  laugh  outright  at  the  first  sight  of  them.  Whether 
Daphne  was  truly  metamorphosed  into  the  sweet  flower  that  bears 
her  name,  as  Ovid  says,  we  know  not ;  but  no  one  can  look  at  the 
blossom  of  the  Dutchman's  pipe  vine,  without  being  convinced  that 
nature  has  punished  some  inveterately  lazy  Dutch  smoker  by  turning 
him  into  a  vine,  which  loves  nothing  so  well  as  to  bask  in  the  warm 
sunshine,  with  its  hundred  pipes,  dangling  on  all  sides. 

And  now,  having  glanced  at  the  best  of  the  climbers  and 
twiners,  properly  so  called  (all  of  which  need  a  little  training  and 
supporting),  let  us  take  a  peep  at  those  climbing  shrubs  that  seize 
hold  of  a  wall,  building,  or  fence,  of  themselves,  by  throwing  out 
their  little  rootlets  into  the  stone  or  brick  wall  as  they  grow  up,  so 
that  it  is  as  hard  to  break  up  any  attachments  of  theirs,  when  they  get 
fairly  established,  as  it  was  to  part  Hector  and  Andromache.  The 
principal  of  these  are  the  true  Ivy  of  Europe,  the  Virginia  Creeper, 
or  American  Ivy,  and  the  "  Trumpet  Creepers  "  (Bignonias  or  Teco- 
mas). 

These  are  all  fine,  picturesque  vines,  not  to  be  surpassed  for  cer- 


94 


HORTICULTURE. 


tain  effects  by  any  thing  else  that  will  grow  out  of  doors  in  our  cli- 
mate. You  must  remember,  however,  that,  as  they  are  wedded  for 
life  to  whatever  they  cling  to,  they  must  not  be  planted  by  the  sides 
of  wooden  cottages,  which  are  to  be  kept  in  order  by  a  fresh  coat 
of  paint  now  and  then.  Other  climbers  may  be  taken  down,  and 
afterwards  tied  back  to  their  places  ;  but  constant,  indissoluble  inti- 
macies like  these  must  be  let  alone.  You  will  therefore  always  take 
care  to  plant  them  where  they  can  fix  themselves  permanently  on  a 
wall  of  some  kind,  or  else  upon  some  rough  wooden  building,  where 
they  will  not  be  likely  to  be  disturbed. 

Certainly  the  finest  of  all  this  class  of  climbers  is  the  European 
Ivy.  Such  rich  masses  of  glossy,  deep  green  foliage,  such  fine  con- 
trasts of  light  and  shade,  and  such  a  wealth  of  associations,  is  pos- 
sessed by  no  other  plant ;  the  Ivy,  to  which  the  ghost  of  all  the 
storied  past  alone  tells  its  tale  of  departed  greatness ;  the  confidant 
of  old  ruined  castles  and  abbeys ;  the  bosom  companion  of  solitude 
itself, — 

"  Deep  in  your  most  sequestered  bower 
Let  me  at  last  recline, 
Where  solitude,  mild,  modest  flower, 
Leans  on  her  ivy'd  shrine." 

True  to  these  instincts,  the  Ivy  does  not  seem  to  be  naturalized 
so  easily  in  America  as  most  other  foreign  vines.  We  are  yet  too 
young — this  country  of  a  great  future,  and  a  little  past. 

The  richest  and  most  perfect  specimen  of  it  that  we  have  seen, 
in  the  northern  States,  is  upon  the  cottage  of  Washington  Irving, 
on  the  Hudson,  near  Tarrytown.  He,  who  as  you  all  know,  lingers 
over  the  past  with  a  reverence  as  fond  and  poetical  as  that  of  a  pious 
Crusader  for  the  walls  of  Jerusalem — yes,  he  has  completely  won  the 
sympathies  of  the  Ivy,  even  on  our  own  soil,  and  it  has  garlanded 
and  decked  his  antique  and  quaint  cottage,  "  Sunnyside,"  till  its 
windows  peep  out  from  amid  the  wealth  of  its  foliage,  like  the  dark 
eyes  of  a  Spanish  Senora  from  a  shadowy  canopy  of  dark  lace  and 
darker  tresses. 

The  Ivy  is  the  finest  of  climbers,  too,  because  it  is  so  perfectly 
evergreen.    North  of  New-York  it  is  a  little  tender,  and  needs  to  be 


ON  THE  DRAPERY  OF  COTTAGES  AND  GARDENS. 


95 


sheltered  for  a  few  years,  unless  it  be  planted  on  a  north  wa.l,  quite 
out  of  ths  reach  of  the  winter  sun) ;  and  north  of  Albany,  we  think 
it  will  not  grow  at  all.  But  all  over  the  middle  States  it  should  be 
planted  and  cherished,  wherever  there  is  a  wall  for  it  to  cling  to,  as 
the  finest  of  all  cottage  drapery. 

After  this  plant,  comes  always  our  Virginia  Creeper,  or  American 
Ivy,  as  it  is  often  called  (Ampelopsis).  It  grows  more  rapidly  than 
the  Ivy,  clings  in  the  same  way  to  wood  or  stone,  and  makes  rich 
and  beautiful  festoons  of  verdure  in  summer,  dying  off  in  autumn, 
before  the  leaves  fall,  in  the  finest  crimson.  Its  greatest  beauty,  on 
this  account,  is  perhaps  seen  when  it  runs  up  in  the  centre  of  a  dark 
cedar,  or  other  evergreen, — exhibiting  in  October  the  richest  contrast 
of  the  two  colors.  It  will  grow  any  where,  in  the  coldest  situations, 
and  only  asks  to  be  planted,  to  work  out  its  own  problem  of  beauty 
without  further  attention.  This  and  the  European  Ivy  are  the  two 
climbers,  above  all  others,  for  the  exteriors  of  our  rural  stone 
churches ;  to  which  they  will  give  a  local  interest  greater  than  that 
of  any  carving  in  stone,  at  a  millionth  part  of  the  cost. 

The  common  Trumpet  Creeper  all  of  you  know  by  heart.  It  is 
rather  a  wild  and  rambling  fellow  in  its  habits  ;  but  nothing  is  bet- 
ter to  cover  old  outside  chimneys,  stone  out-buildings,  and  rude  walls 
and  fences.  The  sort  with  large  cup-shaped  flowers  (Tecoma  grandi- 
flora),  is  a  most  showy  and  magnificent  climber  in  the  middle 
States,  where  the  winters  are  moderate,  absolutely  glowing  in  July 
with  its  thousands  of  rich  orange-red  blossoms,  like  clusters  of 
bright  goblets. 

We  might  go  on,  and  enumerate  dozens  more  of  fine  twining 
shrubs  and  climbing  roses  ;  but  that  would  only  defeat  our  present 
object,  which  is  not  to  give  you  a  garden  catalogue,  but  to  tell  you 
of  half  a  dozen  hardy  shrubby  vines,  which  we  implore  you  to  make 
popular ;  so  that  wherever  we  travel,  from  Maine  to  St.  Louis,  we 
shall  see  no  rural  cottages  shivering  in  their  chill  nudity  of  bare  walls 
or  barer  boards,  but  draped  tastefully  with  something  fresh,  and 
green,  and  graceful :  let  it  be  a  hop-vine  if  nothing  better, — but 
roses,  and  wistaria,  and  honeysuckles,  if  they  can  be  had.  How 
much  this  apparently  trifling  feature,  if  it  could  be  generally  carried 
out,  would  alter  the  face  of  the  whole  country,  you  will  not  at  once 


96 


HORTICULTURE. 


be  able  to  believe.  What  summer  foliage  is  to  a  naked  forest,  what 
ricb  tufts  of  ferns  are  to  a  rock  in  a  woodland  dell,  what  "  hya- 
cinthine  locks  "  are  to  the  goddess  of  beauty,  or  wings  to  an  angel, 
the  drapery  of  climbing  plants  is  to  cottages  in  the  country. 

One  word  or  two  about  vines  in  the  gardens  and  pleasure- 
grounds  before  we  conclude.  How  to  make  arbors  and  trellises  is 
no  mystery,  though  you  will,  no  doubt,  agree  with  us,  that  the  less 
formal  and  the  more  rustic  the  better.  But  how  to  manage  single 
specimens  of  fine  climbers,  in  the  lawn  or  garden,  so  as  to  display 
them  to  tbe  best  advantage,  is  not  quite  so  clear.  Small  fanciful 
frames  are  pretty,  but  soon  want  repairs ;  and  stakes,  though  ever 
so  stout,  will  rot  off  at  the  bottom,  and  blow  down  in  high  winds,  to 
your  great  mortification  ;  and  that,  too,  perhaps,  when  your  plant 
is  in  its  very  court  dress  of  bud  arid  blossom. 

Now  the  best  mode  of  treating  single  vines,  when  you  have  not 
a  tree  to  festoon  them  upon,  is  one  which  many  of  you  will  be  able 
to  attain  easily.  It  is  nothing  more  than  getting  from  the  woods 
the  trunk  of  a  cedar-tree,  from  ten  to  fifteen  feet  high,  shortening-in 
all  the  side  branches  to  within  two  feet  of  the  trunk  (and  still 
shorter  near  the  top),  and  setting  it  again,  as  you  would  a  post,  two 
or  three  feet  deep  in  the  ground.* 

Cedar  is  the  best ;  partly  because  it  will  last  for  ever,  and  partly 
because  the  regular  disposition  of  its  branches  forms  naturally  a  fine 
trellis  for  the  shoots  to  fasten  upon. 

Plant  your  favorite  climber,  whether  rose,  wistaria,  or  honey- 
suckle, at  the  foot  of  this  tree.  It  will  soon  cover  it,  from  top  to 
bottom,  with  the  finest  pyramid  of  verdure.  The  young  shoots  will 
ramble  out  on  its  side  branches,  and  when  in  full  bloom,  will  hang 
most  gracefully  or  picturesquely  from  the  ends. 

The  advantage  of  this  mode  is  that,  once  obtained,  your  sup- 
port lasts  for  fifty  years ;  it  is  so  firm  that  winds  do  not  blow  it 
down  ;  it  presents  every  side  to  the  kindly  influences  of  sun  and  air, 

*  "We  owe  this  hint  to  Mr.  Alfred  Smith,  of  Newport,  a  most  intelligent 
and  successful  amateur,  in  whose  garden  we  first  saw  fine  specimens  of  this 
mode  of  treating  climbers. 


ON  THE  DRAPERY  OF  COTTAGES  AND  GARDENS. 


97 


and  permits  every  blossom  that  opens,  to  be  seen  by  the  admiring 
spectator.  How  it  looks  at  first,  and  afterwards,  in  a  complete  state, 
we  have  endeavored  to  give  you  a  faint  idea  in  this  little  sketch. 

"What  shall  those  of 
us  do  who  have  neither 
cottages  nor  gardens  ? — 
who,  in  short,  are  confined 
to  a  little  front  and  back 
yard  of  a  town  life,  and 
yet  who  love  vines  and 
climbing  plants  with  all 
our  hearts  ? " 

That  is  a  hard  case, 
truly.  But,  now  we  think 
of  it,  that  ingenious  and 
clever  horticulteur,  Mon- 
sieur Van  Houtte,  of  Ghent, 
has  contrived  the  very  thing 
for  you.*  Here  it  is.  He 
calls  it  a  "  Trellis  Mobile ; " 
and  if  we  mistake  not,  it 
will  be  quite  as  valuable 
for  the  ornament  and  de- 
fence of  cities,  as  the  Garde 
Mobile  of  the  Parisians.  It 
is  nothing  more  than  a 
good  strong  wooden  box, 
upon  wooden  rollers.  The  box  is  about  three  feet  long,  and  the 
double  trellis  may  be  eight  or  ten  feet  high.  In  this  box  the  finer 
sorts  of  exotic  climbers,  such  as  passion  flowers,  everblooming  roses, 
maurandias,  ipomea  learii,  and  the  like,  may  be  grown  with  a 
charming  effect.  Put  upon  wheels,  as  this  itinerant  bower  is,  it 
may  be  transported,  as  Mr.  Van  Houtte  says,  "  wherever  fancy  dic- 
tates, and  even  into  the  apartments  of  the  house  itself."  And  here, 
having  fairly  escorted  you  back  to  your  apartments,  after  our  long 


Movable  Trellis. 


*  Flore  des  Serres. 


98 


HORTICULTURE. 


talk  about  out-door  drapery,  we  leave  you  to  examine  the  Trellis 
Mobile,  and  wish  you  a  good  morning. 


Climbing  Plants  on  Cedar  Trunks. 


LANDSCAPE  GARDENING. 


LANDSCAPE  GARDENING. 


I 

THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RURAL  TASTE. 

August,  1849. 

ALL  travellers  agree,  that  while  the  English  people  are  far  from 
being  remarkable  for  their  taste  in  the  arts  generally,  they  are 
unrivalled  in  their  taste  for  landscape  gardening.  So  completely  is 
this  true,  that  wherever  on  the  continent  one  finds  a  garden,  con- 
spicuous for  the  taste  of  its  design,  one  is  certain  to  learn  that  it 
is  laid  out  in  the  "  English  style,"  and  usually  kept  by  an  English 
gardener. 

Not,  indeed,  that  the  south  of  Europe  is  wanting  in  magnificent 
gardens,  which  are  as  essentially  national  in  their  character  as  the 
parks  and  pleasure-grounds  of  England.  The  surroundings  of  the 
superb  villas  of  Florence  and  Rome,  are  fine  examples  of  a  species 
of  scenery  as  distinct  and  striking  as  any  to  be  found  in  the  world ; 
but  which,  however  splendid,  fall  as  far  below  the  English  gardens 
in  interesting  the  imagination,  as  a  level  plain  does  below  the 
finest  mountain  valley  in  Switzerland.  In  the  English  landscape 
garden,  one  sees  and  feels  every  where  the  spirit  of  nature,  only 
softened  and  refined  by  art.  In  the  French  or  Italian  garden, 
one  sees  and  feels  only  the  effects  of  art,  slightly  assisted  by  nature. 
In  one,  the  free  and  luxuriant  growth  of  every  tree  and  shrub,  the 
widening  and  curving  of  every  walk,  suggests  perhaps  even  a  higher 
5 


102 


LANDSCAPE  GARDENING. 


ideal  of  nature, — a  miniature  of  a  primal  paradise,  as  we  would 
imagine  it  to  have  been  bv  divine  right ;  in  the  other,  the  prodi- 
gality of  works  of  ait,  the  variety  of  statues  and  vases,  terraces  and 
balustrades,  united  with  walks  marked  by  the  same  studied  symme- 
try ano  art'stV.  tormf.lity,  and  only  mingled  with  just  foliage  enough 
to  constitute  a  garden, — all  this  suggests  rather  a  statue  gallery  in 
the  open  air, — an  accompaniment  to  the  fan  architecture  of  the 
mansion,  than  any  pure  or  natural  ideas  of  landscape  beauty. 

The  only  writer  who  has  ever  attempted  to  account  for  this 
striking  distinction  of  national  taste  in  gardening,  which  distin- 
guishes the  people  of  northern  and  southern  Europe,  is  Humboldt. 
In  his  last  great  work — Cosmos — he  has  devoted  some  pages  to  the 
consideration  of  the  study  of  nature,  and  the  description  of  natural 
scenery, — a  portion  of  the  work  in  the  highest  degree  interesting  to 
every  man  of  taste,  as  well  as  every  lover  of  nature. 

In  this  portion  he  shows,  we  think,  very  conclusively,  that  cer- 
tain races  of  mankind,  however  great  in  other  gifts,  are  deficient  in 
their  perceptions  of  natural  beauty ;  that  northern  nations  possess 
the  love  of  nature  much  more  strongly  than  those  of  the  south ; 
and  that  the  Greeks  and  Romans,  richly  gifted  as  they  were  with 
the  artistic  endowments,  were  inferior  to  other  nations  in  a  profound 
feeling  of  the  beauty  of  nature. 

Humboldt  also  shows  that  our  enjoyment  of  natural  landscape 
gardening,  which  many  suppose  to  have  originated  in  the  cultivated 
and  refined  taste  of  a  later  age,  is,  on  the  contrary,  purely  a  matter 
of  national  organization.  The  parks  of  the  Persian  monarchs,  and 
the  pleasure-gardens  of  the  Chinese,  were  characterized  by  the  same 
spirit  of  natural  beauty  which  we  see  in  the  English  landscape  gar- 
dens, and  which  is  widely  distinct  from  that  elegant  formality  of 
the  geometric  gardens  of  the  Greeks  and  Romans  of  several  centu- 
ries later.  To  prove  how  sound  were  the  principles  of  Chinese  taste, 
ages  ago,  he  gives  us  a  quotation  from  an  ancient  Chinese  writer, 
Lieu-tscheu,  which  might  well  be  the  text  of  the  most  tasteful  im- 
prover of  the  present  day,  and  which  we  copy  for  the  study  of  our 
own  readers. 

"  What  is  it,"  says  Lieu-tscheu,  "  that  we  seek  in  the  pleasures 
of  a  garden  ?    It  has  always  been  agreed  that  these  plantations 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RURAL  TASTE. 


103 


should  make  men  amends  for  living  at  a  distance  from  what  would 
be  their  more  congenial  and  agreeable  dwelling-place — in  the  midst 
of  nature,  free  and  unconstrained.  The  art  of  laying  out  gardens 
consists,  therefore,  in  combining  cheerfulness  of  prospect,  luxuriance 
of  growth,  shade,  retirement  and  repose ;  so  that  the  rural  aspect 
may  produce  an  illusion.  Variety,  which  is  the  chief  merit  in  the 
natural  landscape,  must  be  sought  by  the  choice  of  ground,  with 
alternation  of  hill  and  dale,  flowing  streams  and  lakes,  covered  with 
aquatic  plants.  Symmetry  is  wearisome ;  and  a  garden  where 
every  thing  betrays  constraint  and  art,  becomes  tedious  and  distaste- 
ful:' 

We  shall  seek  in  vain,  in  the  treatises  of  modern  writers,  for  a 
theory  of  rural  taste  more  concise  and  satisfactory  than  this  of  the 
Chinese  landscape  garden. 

Looking  at  this  instinctive  love  of  nature  as  a  national  charac- 
teristic, which  belongs  almost  exclusively  to  distinct  races,  Hum- 
boldt asserts,  that  while  the  "  profoundest  feeling  of  nature  speaks 
forth  in  the  earliest  poetry  of  the  Hebrews,  the  Indians,  and  the  Se- 
mitic and  Indo-Germanic  nations,  it  is  comparatively  wanting  in 
the  works  of  the  Greeks  and  Romans." 

"  In  Grecian  art,"  says  he,  "  all  is  made  to  concentrate  within 
the  sphere  of  human  life  and  feeling.  The  description  of  nature,  in 
her  manifold  diversity,  as  a  distinct  branch  of  poetic  literature,  was 
altogether  foreign  to  the  ideas  of  the  Greeks.  With  them,  the 
landscape  is  always  the  mere  background  of  a  picture,  in  the  fore- 
ground of  which  human  figures  are  moving.  Passion,  breaking 
forth  in  action,  invited  their  attention  almost  exclusively ;  the  agita- 
tion of  politics,  and  a  life  passed  chiefly  in  public,  withdrew  men's 
minds  from  enthusiastic  absorption  in  the  tranquil  pursuit  of 
nature." 

On  the  other  hand,  the  poetry  of  Britain,  from  a  very  early 
period,  has  been  especially  remarkable  for  the  deep  and  instinctive 
love  of  natural  beauty  which  it  exhibits.  And  here  lies  the  explana- 
tion of  the  riddle  of  the  superiority  of  English  taste  in  rural  embel- 
lishment;  that  people  enjoying  their  gardens  the  more  as  they 
embodied  the  spirit  of  nature,  while  the  Italians,  like  the  Greeks, 
enjoyed  them  the  more  as  they  embodied  the  spirit  of  art. 


104 


LANDSCAPE  GARDENING. 


The  Romans,  tried  in  the  alembic  of  the  great  German  savan, 
are  found  still  colder  in  their  love  of  nature's  charms  than  the 
Greeks.  "A  nation  which  manifested  a  marked  predilection  for 
agriculture  and  rural  life  might  have  justified  other  hopes;  but 
with  all  their  capacity  for  practical  activity,  the  Romans,  in  their 
cold  gravity  and  measured  sobriety  of  understanding,  were,  as  a 
people,  far  inferior  to  the  Greeks  in  the  perception  of  beauty,  far 
less  sensitive  to  its  influence,  and  much  more  devoted  to  the  reali- 
ties of  every-day  life,  than  to  an  idealizing  contemplation  of 
nature." 

.  Judging  them  by  their  writings,  Humboldt  pronounces  the  great 
Roman  writers  to  be  comparatively  destitute  of  real  poetic  feeling 
for  nature.  Livy  and  Tacitus  show,  in  their  histories,  little  or  no  in- 
terest in  natural  scenery.  Cicero  describes  landscape  without  poetic 
feeling.  Pliny,  though  he  rises  to  true  poetic  inspiration  when  de- 
scribing the  great  moving  causes  of  the  natural  universe,  "has  few 
individual  descriptions  of  nature."  Ovid,  in  his  exile,  saw  little  to 
charm  him.  in  the  scenery  around  him ;  and  Virgil,  though  he  often 
devoted  himself  to  subjects  which  prompt  the  enthusiasm  of  a  lover 
of  nature,  rarely  glows  with  the  fire  of  a  true  worshipper  of  her  mys- 
terious charms.  And  not  only  were  the  Romans  indifferent  to  the 
beauty  of  natural  landscape  which  daily  surrounded  them,  but  even 
to  the  sublimity  and  magnificence  of  those  wilder  and  grander 
scenes,  into  which  their  love  of  conquest  often  led  them.  The  fol- 
lowing striking  paragraph,  from  Humboldt's  work,  is  at  once  elo- 
quent and  convincing  on  this  point : 

"  No  description  of  the  eternal  snows  of  the  Alps,  when  tinged 
in  the .  morning  or  evening  with  a  rosy  hue, — of  the  beauty  of  the 
blue  glacier  ice,  or  of  any  part  of  the  grandeur  of  the  scenery  in 
Switzerland, — have  reached  us  from  the  ancients,  although  states- 
men and  generals,  with  men  of  letters  in  their  train,  were  constantly 
passing  from  Helvetia  into  Gaul.  All  these  travellers  think  only  of 
complaining  of  the  difficulties  of  the  way ;  the  romantic  character 
of  the  scenery  seems  never  to  have  engaged  their  attention.  It  is 
even  known  that  Julius  Caesar,  when  returning  to  his  legions,  in 
Gaul,  employed  his  time  while  passing  over  the  Alps  in  preparing  a 
grammatical  treatise,  '  De  Analogia.' " 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RURAL  TASTE. 


105 


The  corollary  to  be  drawn  from  this  learned  and  curious  investi- 
gation of  the  history  of  national  sensibility  and  taste,  is  a  very  clear 
and  satisfactory  one,  viz.,  that  as  success,  in  "  the  art  of  composing 
a  landscape"  (as  Humboldt  significantly  calls  landscape-gardening), 
depends  on  appreciation  of  nature,  the  taste  of  an  individual  as  well 
as  that  of  a  nation,  will  be  in  direct  proportion  to  the  profound  sen- 
sibility with  which  he  perceives  the  Beautiful  in  natural  scenery. 

Our  own  observation  not  only  fully  confirms  this  theory,  but  it 
also  leads  us  to  the  recognition  of  the  fact,  that  among  our  country- 
men, at  the  present  day,  there  are  two  distinct  classes  of  taste  in 
rural  art ;  first,  the  poetic  or  northern  taste,  based  on  a  deep,  in- 
stinctive feeling  for  nature ;  and  second,  the  artistic  or  symmetric 
taste,  based  on  a  perception  of  the  Beautiful,  as  embodied  in  works 
of  art. 

The  larger  part  of  our  countrymen  inherit  the  northern  or  Anglo- 
Saxon  love  of  nature,  and  find  most  delight  in  the  natural  landscape 
garden ;  but  we  have  also  not  a  few  to  whom  the  classic  villa,  with 
its  artistic  adornments  of  vase  and  statue,  urn  and  terrace,  is  an  ob- 
ject of  much  more  positive  pleasure  than  the  most  varied  and  seduc- 
tive gardens,  laid  out  with  all  the  witchery  of  nature's  own  handi- 
work. 

It  is  not  part  of  our  philosophy  to  urge  our  readers  to  war  against 
their  organizations,  to  whichever  path,  in  the  "  Delectable  Mountains," 
they  may  be  led  by  them ;  but  those  who  have  not  already  studied 
Cosmos  will,  we  trust,  at  least  thank  us  for  giving  them  the  key  to 
their  natural  bias  towards  one  or  the  other  of  the  two  world-wide 
styles  of  ornamental  gardening. 


II. 


THE  BEAUTIFUL  IN  GROUND. 

March,  1852. 

TI7E  have  sketched,  elsewhere,  the  elements  of  the  beautiful  in  a 
V  V    tree.    Let  us  glance  for  a  few  moments  at  the  beautiful  in 
ground. 

We  may  have  readers  who  think  themselves  not  devoid  of  some 
taste  for  nature,  but  who  have  never  thought  of  looking  for  beauty 
in  the  mere  surface  of  the  earth — whether  in  a  natural  landscape, 
or  in  ornamental  grounds.  Their  idea  of  beauty  is,  for  the  most 
part,  attached  to  the  foliage  and  verdure,  the  streams  of  water,  the 
high  hills  and  the  deep  valleys,  that  make  up  the  landscape.  A 
meadow  is  to  them  but  a  meadow,  and  a  ploughed  field  is  but  the 
same  thing  in  a  rough  state.  And  yet  there  is  a  great  and  endur- 
ing interest,  to  a  refined  and  artistic  eye,  in  the  mere  surface  of  the 
ground.  There  is  a  sense  of  pleasure  awakened  by  the  pleasing  lines 
into  which  yonder  sloping  bank  of  turf  steals  away  from  the  eye, 
and  a  sense  of  ugliness  and  harshness,  by  the  raw  and  broken  out- 
line of  the  abandoned  quarry  on  the  hill-side,  which  hardly  any  one 
can  be  so  obtuse  as  not  to  see  and  feel.  Yet  the  finer  gradations 
are  nearly  overlooked,  and  the  charm  of  beautiful  surface  in  a  lawn 
is  seldom  or  never  considered  in  selecting  a  new  site  or  improving 
an  old  one. 

We  believe  artists  and  men  of  taste  have  agreed  that  all 
forms  of  acknowledged  beauty  are  composed  of  curved  lines ;  and 
we  may  add  to  this,  that  the  more  gentle  and  gradual  the  curves, 
or  rather,  the  farther  they  are  removed  from  those  hard  and  forcible 


THE  BEAUTIFUL  IN  GROUND. 


107 


lines  which  denote  violence,  the  more  beautiful  are  they.  The  prin- 
ciple applies  as  well  to  the  surface  of  the  earth  as  to  other  objects. 
The  most  beautiful  shape  in  ground  is  that  where  one  undulation 
melts  gradually  and  insensibly  into  another.  Every  one  who  has 
observed  scenery  where  the  foregrounds  were  remarkable  for  beauty, 
must  have  been  struck  by  this  prevalence  of  curved  lines ;  and  every 
landscape  gardener  well  knows  that  no  grassy  surface  is  so  captiva- 
ting to  the  eye,  as  one  where  these  gentle  swells  and  undulations 
rise  and  melt  away  gradually  into  one  another.  Some  poet,  happy 
in  his  fancy,  has  called  such  bits  of  grassy  slopes  and  swells,  "  earth's 
smiles ;"  and  when  the  effect  of  the  beauty  and  form  of  outline  is 
heightened  by  the  pleasing  gradation  of  light  and  shade,  caused  by 
the  sun's  light,  variously  reflected  by  such  undulations  of  lawn,  the 
simile  seems  strikingly  appropriate.  With  every  change  of  position 
the  outlines  vary,  and  the  lights  and  shades  vary  with  them,  so  that 
the  eye  is  doubly  pleased  by  the  beauty  of  form  and  chiaro-oscuro, 
in  a  lawn  with  gracefully  undulating  surface. 

A  flat  or  level  surface  is  considered  beautiful  by  many  persons, 
though  it  has  no  beauty  in  itself.  It  is,  in  fact,  chiefly  valued  because 
it  evinces  art.  Though  there  is  no  positive  beauty  in  a  straight  or 
level  line,  it  is  often  interesting  as  expressive  of  power,  and  we  feel  as 
much  awed  by  the  boundless  prairie  or  desert,  as  by  the  lofty  snow-cap- 
ped hill.  On  a  smaller  scale,  a  level  surface  is  sometimes  agreeable 
in  the  midst  of  a  rude  and  wild  country  by  way  of  contrast,  as  a 
small,  level  garden  in  the  Alps  will  sometimes  attract  one  astonish- 
ingly, that  would  be  passed  by,  unnoticed,  in  the  midst  of  a  flat  and 
cultivated  country. 

Hence,  as  there  are  a  thousand  men  who  value  power,  where 
there  is  one  who  can  feel  beauty,  we  see  all  ignorant  persons  who 
set  about  embellishing  their  pleasure-grounds,  or  even  the  site  for 
a  home,  immediately  commence  levelling  the  surface.  Once  brought 
to  this  level,  improvement  can  go  no  further,  according  to  their 
views,  since  to  subjugate  or  level,  is  the  whole  aim  of  man's  am- 
bition. Once  levelled,  you  may  give  to  grounds,  or  even  to  a  whole 
landscape,  according  to  their  theory,  as  much  beauty  as  you  like.  It 
is  only  a  question  of  expense. 

This  is  a  fearful  fallacy,  however ;  fearful,  oftentimes,  to  both  the 


108 


LANDSCAPE  GARDENING-. 


eye  and  the  purse.  If  a  dead  level  were  the  thing  needful  to  con- 
stitute heauty  of  surface — then  all  Holland  would  be  the  Arcadia 
of  Landscape  Painters ;  and  while  Claude,  condemned  to  tame  Italy, 
would  have  painted  the  interior  of  inns,  and  groups  of  boors  drink- 
ing (vide  the  Dutch  School  of  Art),  Teniers,  hving  in  the  dead  level 
of  his  beautiful  nature,  would  have  bequeathed  to  the  world  pictures 
of  his  native  land,  full  of  the  loveliness  of  meadows  smooth  as  a 
carpet,  or  enlivened  only  by  pollard  willows  and  stagnant  canals. 
It  is  not  the  less  fearful  to  see,  as  we  have  often  seen  in  this  country, 
where  new  places  are  continually  made,  a  finely  varied  outline  of 
ground  utterly  spoiled  by  being  graded  for  the  mansion  and  its  sur- 
rounding lawn,  at  an  expense  which  would  have  curved  all  the 
walks,  and  filled  the  grounds  with  the  finest  trees  and  shrubs,  if  their 
surface  had  been  left  nearly  or  quite  as  nature  formed  it.  Not  much 
better,  or  even  far  worse,  is  the  foolish  fancy  many  persons  have  of 
terracing  every  piece  of  sloping  ground — as  a  mere  matter  of  orna- 
ment, where  no  terrace  is  needed.  It  may  be  pretty  safely  said,  that 
a  terrace  is  always  ugly,  unless  it  is  on  a  large  scale,  and  is  treated 
with  dignity,  so  as  to  become  part  of  the  building  itself,  or  more 
properly  be  supposed  to  belong  to  it  than  to  the  grounds — like  the 
fine,  architectural  terraces  which  surround  the  old  English  mansions. 
But  little  gardens  thrown  up  into  terraces,  are  devoid  of  all  beauty 
whatever — though  they  may  often  be  rendered  more  useful  or  avail- 
able in  this  way. 

The  surface  of  ground  is  rarely  ugly  in  a  state  of  nature — 
because  all  nature  leans  to  the  beautiful,  and  the  constant  action  of 
the  elements  goes  continually  to  soften  and  wear  away  the  harshness 
and  violence  of  surface.  What  cannot  be  softened,  is  hidden  and 
rounded  by  means  of  foliage,  trees  and  shrubs,  and  creeping  vines, 
and  so  the  tendency  to  the  curve  is  always  greater  and  greater.  But 
man  often  forms  ugly  surfaces  of  ground,  by  breaking  up  all  natural 
curves,  without  recognizing  their  expression,  by  distributing  lumps 
of  earth  here  and  there,  by  grading  levels  in  the  midst  of  undulations, 
and  raising  mounds  on  perfectly  smooth  surfaces ;  in  short,  by  re- 
garding only  the  little  he  wishes  to  do  in  his  folly,  and  not  studying 
the  larger  part  that  nature  has  already  done  in  her  wisdom.  As  a 
common,  though  accidental  illustration  of  this,  we  may  notice  that 
the  mere  routine  of  tillage  on  a  farm,  has  a  tendency  to  destroy  natr 


THE  BEAUTIFUL  IN  GROUND. 


109 


ural  beauty  of  surface,  by  ridging  up  the  soil  at  the  outsides  of  the 
field,  and  thus  breaking  up  that  continuous  flow  of  line  which  de- 
lights the  eye. 

Our  object  in  these  remarks,  is  simply  to  ask  our  readers  to  think 
in  the  beginning,  before  they  even  commence  any  improvements  on 
the  surface  of  ground  whioh  they  wish  to  embellish — to  think  in 
what  natural  beauty  really  consists,  and  whether  in  grading,  they  are 
not  wasting  money,  and  losing  that  which  they  are  seeking.  It 
will  be  better  still,  if  they  will  consider  the  matter  seriously,  when 
they  are  about  buying  a  place,  since,  as  we  have  before  observed,  no 
money  is  expended  with  so  little  to  show  for  it,  and  so  little  satisfac- 
tion, as  that  spent  in  changing  the  original  surface  of  the  ground. 

Practically — the  rules  we  would  deduce  are  the  following  :  To 
select,  always,  if  possible,  a  surface  varied  by  gentle  curves  and  un- 
dulations. If  something  of  this  character  already  exists,  it  may 
often  be  greatly  heightened  or  improved  at  little  cost.  Very  often, 
too,  a  nearly  level  surface  may,  by  a  very  trifling  addition — only 
adding  a  few  inches  in  certain  points,  be  raised  to  a  character  of 
positive  beauty — by  simply  following  the  hints  given  by  nature. 

When  a  surface  is  quite  level  by  nature,  we  must  usually  con- 
tent ourselves  with  trusting  to  planting,  and  the  arrangement  of 
walks,  buildings,  &c,  to  produce  beauty  and  variety ;  and  we  would 
always,  in  such  cases,  rather  expend  money  in  introducing  beautiful 
vases,  statues,  or  other  works  of  positive  artistic  merit,  than  to  ter- 
race and  unmake  what  character  nature  has  stamped  on  the  ground. 

Positively  ugly  and  forbidding  surfaces  of  ground,  may  be  ren- 
dered highly  interesting  and  beautiful,  only  by  changing  their  char- 
acter, entirely,  by  planting.  Such  ground,  after  this  has  been  done, 
becomes  only  the  skeleton  of  the  fair  outside  of  beauty  and  verdure 
that  covers  the  forbidding  original.  Some  of  the  most  picturesque 
ravines  and  rocky  hill-sides,  if  stripped  entirely  of  their  foliage, 
would  appear  as  ugly  as  they  were  before  beautiful ;  and  while  this 
may  teach  the  improver  that  there  is  no  situation  that  may  not  be 
rendered  attractive,  if  the  soil  will  yield  a  growth  of  trees,  shrubs, 
and  vines,  it  does  not  the  less  render  it  worth  our  attention  in  choos- 
ing or  improving  a  place,  to  examine  carefully  beforehand,  in  what 
really  consists  the  Beautiful  in  ground,  and  whether  we  should  lose 
or  gain  it  in  our  proposed  improvements. 


ni. 


HINTS  TO  RURAL  IMPROVERS.  - 

July,  1848. 

ONE  of  the  most  striking  proofs  of  the  progress  of  refinement,  in 
the  United  States,  is  the  rapid  increase  of  taste  for  ornamental 
gardening  and  rural  embellishment-  in  all  the  older  portions  of  the 
northern  and  middle  States. 

It  cannot  be  denied,  that  the  tasteful  improvement  of  a  country 
residence  is  both  one  of  the  most  agreeable  and  the  most  natural 
recreations  that  can  occupy  a  cultivated  mind.  With  all  the  interest 
and,  to  many,  aU  the  excitement  of  the  more  seductive  amusements 
of  society,  it  has  the  incalculable  advantage  of  fostering  only  the 
purest  feelings,  and  (unlike  manv  other  occupations  of  business  men) 
refining,  instead  of  hardening  the  heart. 
The  great  German  poet,  Goethe,  says — 

)  "  Happy  the  man  who  hath  escaped  the  town,  ' 
Him  did  an  angel  bless  when  he  was  born." 

This  apostrophe  was  addressed  to  the  devotee  of  country  life  as  a 
member  of  a  class,  in  the  old  world,  where  men,  for  the  most  part, 
are  confined  to  certain  walks  of  life  by  the  limits  of  caste,  to  a  de- 
gree totally  unknown  in  this  country. 

With  us,  country  life  is  a  leading  object  of  nearly  all  men's  de- 
sires. The  wealthiest  merchant  looks  upon  his  country-seat  as  the 
best  ultimatum  of  his  laborious  days  in  the  counting-house.  The 
most  indefatigable  statesman  dates,  in  his  retirement,  from  his  "Ash- 
land," or  his  "  Lindenwold."    Webster  has  his  "  Marshfield,"  where 


HINTS  TO  RURAL  IMPROVERS. 


Ill 


his  scientific  agriculture  is  no  less  admirable  than  his  profound  elo- 
quence in  the  Senate.  Taylor's  well-ordered  plantation  is  not  less 
significant  of  the  man,  than  the  battle  of  Buena  Vista.  Washing- 
ton Irving's  cottage,  on  the  Hudson,  is  even  more  poetical  than  any 
chapter  of  his  Sketch  Book  ;  and  Cole,  the  greatest  of  our  landscape 
painters,  had  his  rural  home  under  the  very  shadow  of  the  Catskills. 

This  is  well.  In  the  United  States,  nature  and  domestic  life  are  1 
better  than  society  and  the  manners  of  towns.  Hence  all  sensible 
men  gladly  escape,  earlier  or  later,  and  partially  or  wholly,  from  the 
turmoil  of  the  cities.  Hence  the  dignity  and  value  of  country  life 
is  every  day  augmenting.  And  hence  the  enjoyment  of  landscape 
or  ornamental  gardening — which,  when  in  pure  taste,  may  properly 
be  called  a  more  refined  kind  of  nature, — is  every  day  becoming 
more  and  more  widely  diffused. 

Those  who  are  not  as  conversant  as  ourselves  with  the  statistics 
of  horticulture  and  rural  architecture,  have  no  just  idea  of  the  rapid 
multiplication  of  pretty  cottages  and  villas  in  many  parts  of  North 
America.  The  vast  web  of  railroads  which  now  interlaces  the  con- 
tinent, though  really  built  for  the  purposes  of  trade,  cannot  wholly 
escape  doing  some  duty  for  the  Beautiful  as  well  as  the  Useful. 
Hundreds  and  thousands,  formerly  obliged  to  five  in  the  crowded 
streets  of  cities,  now  find  themselves  able  to  enjoy  a  country  cottage, 
several  miles  distant, — the  old  notions  of  time  and  space  being  half 
annihilated ;  and  these  suburban  cottages  enable  the  busy  citizen  to 
breathe  freely,  and  keep  alive  his  love  for  nature,  till  the  time  shall 
come  when  he  shall  have  wrung  out  of  the  nervous  hand  of  com- 
merce enough  means  to  enable  him  to  realize  his  ideal  of  the  "  re- 
tired life  "  of  an  American  landed  proprietor. 

The  number  of  our  country  residences  which  are  laid  out,  and 
kept  at  a  high  point  of  ornamental  gardening,  is  certainly  not  very 
large,  though  it  is  continually  increasing.  But  we  have  no  hesita- 
tion in  saying  that  the  aggregate  sum  annually  expended  in  this 
way  for  the  last  five  years,  in  North  America,  is  not  exceeded  in  any 
country  in  the  world  save  one. 

England  ranks  before  all  other  countries  in  the  perfection  of  its 
landscape  gardening ;  and  enormous,  almost  incredible  sums  have 
been  expended  by  her  wealthier  class  upon  their  rural  improvements. 


112 


LANDSCAPE  GARDENING. 


But  the  taste  of  England  is,  we  have  good  reasons  for  believing,  at 
its  maximum ;  and  the  expenditure  of  the  aristocracy  is,  of  late, 
chiefly  devoted  to  keeping  up  the  existing  style  of  their  parks  and 
pleasure-grounds.  In  this  country,  it  is  quite  surprising  how  rapid 
is  the  creation  of  new  country  residences,  and  how  large  is  the  ag- 
gregate amount  continually  expended  in  the  construction  of  houses 
and  grounds,  of  a  character  more  or  less  ornamental. 

Granting  all  this,  it  cannot  be  denied  that  there  are  also,  in  the 
United  States,  large  sums  of  money — many  millions  of  dollars — 
annually,  most  unwisely  and  injudiciously  expended  in  these  rural 
improvements.  While  we  gladly  admit  that  there  has  been  a  sur- 
prising and  gratifying  advance  in  taste  within  the  last  ten  years,  we 
are  also  forced  to  confess  that  there  are  countless  specimens  of  bad 
taste,  and  hundreds  of  examples  where  a  more  agreeable  and  satis- 
factory result  might  have  been  attained  atone-half  the  cost. 

Is  it  not,  therefore,  worth  while  to  inquire  a  little  more  definitely 
what  are  the  obstacles  that  lie  in  the  way  of  forming  satisfactory, 
tasteful,  and  agreeable  countiy  residences  ? 

The  common  reply  to  this  question,  when  directly  put  in  the  face 

of  any  signal  example  of  failure  is — "  Oh,  Mr.  is  a  man  of  no 

taste  !  "  There  is,  undoubtedly,  often  but  too  much  truth  in  this 
clean  cut  at  the  aesthetic  capacities  of  the  unlucky  improver.  But 
it  by  no  means  follows  that  it  is  always  true.  A  man  may  have 
taste,  and  yet  if  he  trusts  to  his  own  powers  of  direction,  signally 
fail  in  tasteful  improvements. 

We  should  say  that  two  grand  errors  are  the  fertile  causes  of 
all  the  failures  in  the  rural  improvements  of  the  United  States  at  the 
present  moment. 

The  first  error  lies  in  supposing  that  good  taste  is  a  natural  gift, 
which  springs  heaven-born  into  perfect  existence — needing  no  culti- 
vation or  improvement.  The  second  is  in  supposing  that  taste  alone 
is  sufficient  to  the  production  of  extensive  or  complete  works  in 
architecture  or  landscape  gardening. 

A  lively  sensibility  to  the  Beautiful,  is  a  natural  faculty,  mistaken 
by  more  than  half  the  world  for  good  taste  itself.  But  good  taste, 
in  the  true  meaning  of  the  terms,  or,  more  strictly,  correct  taste, 
only  exists  where  sensibility  to  the  Beautiful,  and  good  judgment, 


HINTS  TO  RURAL  IMPROVERS. 


113 


are  combined  in  the  same  mind.  Thus,  a  person  may  have  a  deli- 
cate organization,  which  will  enable  him  to  receive  pleasure  from 
every  thing  that  possesses  grace  or  beauty,  but  with  it  so  little  power 
of  discrimination  as  to  be  unable  to  select  among  many  pleasing 
objects,  those  which,  under  given  circumstances,  are  the  most  beauti- 
ful, harmonious,  or  fitting.  Such  a  person  may  be  said  to  have  na- 
tural sensibility,  or  fine  perceptions,  but  not  good  taste  ;  the  latter 
belongs  properly  to  one  who,  among  many  beautiful  objects,  rapidly 
compares,  discriminates,  and  gives  due  rank  to  each,  according  to 
its  merit. 

Now,  although  that  delicacy  of  organization,  usually  called  taste, 
is  a  natural  gift,  which  can  no  more  be  acquired  than  hearing  can 
be  by  a  deaf  man,  yet,  in  most  persons,  this  sensibility  to  the  Beau- 
tiful may  be  cultivated  and  ripened  into  good  taste  by  the  study  and 
comparison  of  beautiful  productions  in  nature  and  art. 

This  is  precisely  what  we  wish  to  insist  upon,  to  all  persons 
about  to  commence  rural  embellishments,  who  have  not  a  cultivated 
or  just  taste ;  but  only  sensibility,  or  what  they  would  call  a  natural 
taste. 

Three-fourths  of  all  the  building  and  ornamental  gardening  of 
America,  hitherto,  have  been  amateur  performances — often  the  pro- 
ductions of  persons  who,  with  abundant  natural  sensibility,  have 
taken  no  pains  to  cultivate  it  and  form  a  correct,  or  even  a  good 
taste,  by  studying  and  comparing  the  best  examples  already  in 
existence  in  various  parts  of  this  or  other  countries.  Now  the 
study  of  the  best  productions  in  the  fine  arts  is  not  more  necessary 
to  the  success  of  the  young  painter  and  sculptor  than  that  of  build- 
ings and  grounds  to  the  amateur  or  professional  improver,  who 
desires  to  improve  a  country  residence  well  and  tastefully.  In  both 
cases  comparison,  discrimination,  the  use  of  the  reasoning  faculty, 
educate  the  natural  delicacy  of  perception  into  taste,  more  or  less 
just  and  perfect,  and  enable  it  not  only  to  arrive  at  Beauty,  but  to 
select  the  most  beautiful  for  the  end  in  view. 

There  are  at  the  present  moment,  without  going  abroad,  oppor- 
tunities of  cultivating  a  taste  in  landscape-gardening,  quite  sufficient 
to  enable  any  one  of  natural  sensibility  to  the  Beautiful,  combined 
with  good  reasoning  powers,  to  arrive  at  that  point  which  may  be 
8 


114 


LANDSCAPE  GARDENING. 


considered  good  taste.  There  are,  indeed,  few  persons  who  are 
aware  how  instructive  and  interesting  to  an  amateur,  a  visit  to  all 
the  finest  country  residences  of  the  older  States,  would  be  at  the 
present  moment.  The  study  of  books  on  taste  is  by  no  means  to  be 
neglected  by  the  novice  in  rural  embellishment ;  but  the  practical 
illustrations  of  different  styles  and  principles,  to  be  found  in  the  best 
cottage  and  villa  residences,  are  far  more  convincing  and  instruc- 
tive to  most  minds,  than  lessons  taught  in  any  other  mode  what- 
ever. 

We  shall  not,  therefore,  hesitate  to  commend  a  few  of  the  most 
interesting  places  to  the  study  of  the  tasteful  improver.  By  the 
expenditure  of  the  necessary  time  and  money  to  examine  and  com- 
pare thoroughly  such  places,  he  will  undoubtedly  save  himself  much 
unnecessary  outlay ;  he  will  be  able  to  seize  and  develope  many 
beauties  which  would  otherwise  be  overlooked  ;  and,  most  of  all,  he 
will  be  able  to  avoid  the  exhibition  of  that  crude  and  uncultivated 
taste,  which  characterizes  the  attempts  of  the  majority  of  beginners, 
who  rather  know  how  to  enjoy  beautiful  grounds  than  how  to  go  to 
work  to  produce  them. 

For  that  species  of  suburban  cottage  or  villa  residence  which  is 
most  frequent  within  the  reach  of  persons  of  moderate  fortunes,  the 
environs  of  Boston  afford  the  finest  examples  in  the  Union.  Averag- 
ing from  five  to  twenty  acres,  they  are  usually  laid  out  with  taste, 
are  well  planted  with  a  large  variety  of  trees  and  shrubs,  and  above 
all,  are  exquisitely  kept.  As  a  cottage  ornee,  there  are  few  places 
in  America  more  perfect  than  the  grounds  of  Colonel  Perkins,  or  of 
Thos.  Lee,  Esq.,  at  Brookline,  near  Boston.  The  latter  is  especially 
remarkable  for  the  beauty  of  the  lawn,  and  the  successful  manage- 
ment of  rare  trees  and  shrubs,  and  is  a  most  excellent  study  for  the 
suburban  landscape-gardener.  There  are  many  other  places  in  that 
neighborhood  abounding  with  interest ;  but  the  great  feature  of  the 
gardens  of  Boston  lies  rather  in  their  horticultural  than  their  artis- 
tical  merit.  In  forcing  and  skilful  cultivation,  they  still  rank  before 
any  other  of  the  country.  Mr.  Cushing's  residence,  near  Watertown, 
has  long  been  celebrated  in  this  respect. 

An  amateur  who  wishes  to  study  trees,  shoidd  visit  the  fine  old 
places  in  the  neighborhood  of  Philadelphia,  A  couple  of  days  spent 


HINTS  TO  RURAL  IMPROVERS. 


115 


at  the  Bartram  Garden,  the  Hamilton  Place,  and  many  of  the  old 
estates  bordering  the  Schuylkill,  will  make  him  familiar  with  rare 
and  fine  trees,  such  as  Salisburias,  Magnolias,  Virgilias,  etc.,  of  a  size 
and  beauty  of  growth  that  will  not  only  fill  him  with  astonishment, 
but  convince  him  what  effects  may  be  produced  by  planting.  As 
a  specimen  of  a  cottage  residence  of  the  first  class,  exquisitely  kept, 
there  are  also  few  examples  in  America  more  perfect  than  Mrs. 
Camac's  grounds,  four  or  five  miles  from  Philadelphia. 

For  landscape  gardening,  on  a  large  scale,  and  in  its  best  sense, 
there  are  no  places  in  America  which  compare  with  those  on  the 
east  bank  of  the  Hudson,  between  Hyde  Park  and  the  town  of 
Hudson.  The  extent  of  the  grounds,  and  their  fine  natural  advan- 
tages of  wood  and  lawn,  combined  with  their  grand  and  beautiful 
views,  and  the  admirable  manner  in  which  these  natural  charms 
are  heightened  by  art,  place  them  far  before  any  other  residences  in 
the  United  States  in  picturesque  beauty.  In  a  strictly  horticultural 
sense,  they  are,  perhaps,  as  much  inferior  to  the  best  places  about 
Boston  as  they  are  superior  to  them  in  the  beauty  of  landscape  gar- 
dening and  picturesque  effect. 

Among  these  places,  those  which  enjoy  the  highest  reputation, 
are  Montgomery  Place,  the  seat  of  Mrs.  Edward  Livingston,  Blithe- 
wood,  the  seat  of  R.  Donaldson,  Esq.,  and  Hyde  Park,  the  seat  of 
W.  Langdon,  Esq.  The  first  is  remarkable  for  its  extent,  for  the 
wonderful  variety  of  scenery — wood,  water,  and  gardenesque — which 
it  embraces,  and  for  the  excellent  general  keeping  of  the  grounds. 
The  second  is  a  fine  illustration  of  great  natural  beauty, — a  mingling 
of  the  graceful  and  grand  in  scenery, — admirably  treated  and 
heightened  by  art.  Hyde  Park  is  almost  too  well  known  to  need 
more  than  a  passing  notice.  It  is  a  noble  site,  greatly  enhanced  in 
interest  lately,  by  the  erection  of  a  fine  new  mansion. 

The  student  or  amateur  in  landscape  gardening,  who  wishes  to 
examine  two  places  as  remarkable  for  breadth  and  dignity  of  effect 
as  any  in  America,  will  not  fail  to  go  to  the  Livingston  Manor,  seven 
miles  east  of  Hudson,  and  to  Rensselaerwyck,  a  few  miles  from 
Albany,  on  the  eastern  shore.  The  former  has  the  best  kept  and 
most  extensive  lawn  in  the  Union ;  and  the  latter,  with  five  or  six 
miles  of  gravelled  walks  and  drives,  within  its  own  boundaries,  ex- 


116 


LANDSCAPE  GARDENING. 


hibits  some  of  the  cleverest  illustrations  of  practical  skill  in  laying 
out  grounds  that  we  remember  to  have  seen.* 

If  no  person,  about  to  improve  a  country  residence,  would  ex- 
pend a  dollar  until  he  had  visited  and  carefully  studied,  at  least 
twenty  places  of  the  character  of  these  which  we  have  thus  pointed 
out,  we  think  the  number  of  specimens  of  bad  taste,  or  total  want 
of  taste,  would  be  astonishingly  diminished.  We  could  point  to 
half  a  dozen  examples  within  our  own  knowledge,  where  ten  days 
spent  by  their  proprietors  in  examining  what  had  already  been  done 
in  some,  of  the  best  specimens  of  building  and  gardening  in  the 
country,  could  not  but  have  prevented  their  proprietors  from  mak- 
ing their  places  absolutely  hideous,  and  throwing  away  ten,  twenty, 
or  thirty  thousand  dollars.  Ignorance  is  not  bliss,  nor  is  it  econo- 
my, in  improving  a  country-seat. 

We  think,  also,  there  can  scarcely  be  a  question  that  an  exam- 
ination of  the  best  examples  of  taste  in  rural  improvement  at 
home,  is  far  more  instructive  to  an  American,  than  an  inspection  of 
the  finest  country  places  in  Europe ;  and  this,  chiefly,  because  a 
really  successful  example  at  home  is  based  upon  republican  modes 
of  life,  enjoyment,  and  expenditure, — which  are  almost  the  reverse 
of  those  of  an  aristocratic  government.  For  the  same  reason,  we 
think  those  places  most  instructive,  and  best  worthy  general  study 
in  this  country,  which  realize  most  completely  our  ideal  of  refined 
countiy  life  in  America.  To  do  this,  it  is  by  no  means  necessary  to 
have  baronial  possessions,  or  a  mansion  of  vast  extent.  No  more 
should  be  attempted  than  can  be  done  well,  and  in  perfect  harmony 
with  our  habits,  mode  of  life,  and  domestic  institutions.  Hence, 
smaller  suburban  residences,  like  those  in  the  neighborhood  of  Bos- 
ton, are,  perhaps,  better  models,  or  studies  for  the  public  generally, 
than  our  grander  and  more  extensive  seats ;  mainly  because  they 
are  more  expressive  of  the  means  and  character  of  the  majority  of 

*  "We  should  apologize  for  thus  pointing  out  private  places,  did  we  not 
know  that  the  liberal  proprietors  of  those  just  named,  are  persons  who  take 
the  liveliest  interest  in  the  progress  of  good  taste,  and  will  cheerfully  allow 
their  places  to  be  examined  by  those  who  visit  them  with  such  motives  as 
we  here  urge, — very  different  from  idle  curiosity. 


HINTS  TO  RURAL  IMPROVERS. 


117 


those  of  our  countrymen  whose  intelligence  and  refinement  lead 
them  to  find  their  happiness  in  country  life.  It  is  better  to  attempt 
a  small  place,  and  attain  perfect  success,  than  to  fail  in  one  of 
greater  extent. 

Having  pointed  out  what  we  consider  indispensable  to  be  done, 
to  assist  in  forming,  if  possible,  a  correct  taste  in  those  who  have 
only  a  natural  delicacy  of  organization,  which  they  miscall  taste,  we 
may  also  add  that  good  taste,  or  even  a  perfect  taste,  is  often  by 
no  means  sufficient  for  the  production  of  really  extensive  works  of 
rural  architecture  or  landscape-gardening. 

"  Taste,"  says  Cousin,  in  his  Philosophy  of  the  Beautiful,  "  is  a 
faculty  indolent  and  passive ;  it  reposes  tranquilly  in  the  contem- 
plation of  the  Beautiful  in  Nature.  Genius  is  proud  and  free ;  ge- 
nius creates  and  reconstructs." 

He,  therefore  (whether  as  amateur  or  professor),  who  hopes  to 
be  successful  in  the  highest  degree,  in  the  arts  of  refined  building  or 
landscape-gardening,  must  possess  not  only  taste  to  appreciate  the 
Beautiful,  but  genius  to  produce  it.  Do  we  not  often  see  persons 
who  have  for  half  their  lives  enjoyed  a  reputation  for  correct  taste, 
suddenly  lose  it  when  they  attempt  to  embody  it  in  some  practical 
manner  ?  Such  persons  have  only  the  "  indolent  and  passive,"  and 
not  the  "  free  and  creative  faculty."  Yet  there  are  a  thousand  little 
offices  of  supervision  and  control,  where  the  taste  alone  may  be  ex- 
ercised with  the  happiest  results  upon  a  country  place.  It  is  by  no 
means  a  small  merit  to  prevent  any  violations  of  good  taste,  if  we 
cannot  achieve  any  great  work  of  genius.  And  we  are  happy  to 
be  able  to  say  that  we  know  many  amateurs  in  this  country  who 
mite  with  a  refined  taste  a  creative  genius,  or  practical  ability  to 
carry  beautiful  improvements  into  execution,  which  has  already 
enriched  the  country  with  beautiful  examples  of  rural  residences ; 
and  we  can  congratulate  ourselves  that,  along  with  other  traits  of 
the  Anglo-Saxon  mind,  we  have  by  no  means  failed  in  our  inherit- 
ance of  that  fine  appreciation  of  rural  beauty,  and  the  power  of  de- 
veloping it,  which  the  English  have  so  long  possessed. 

We  hope  the  number  of  those  who  are  able  to  enjoy  this  most 
refined  kind  of  happiness  will  eveiy  day  grow  more  and  more  nu- 


118 


LANDSCAPE  GARDENING. 


merous ;  and  tnat  it  may  do  so,  we  are  confident  we  can  give  no 
better  advice  than  again  to  commend  beginners,  before  they  lay  a 
corner  stone,  or  plant  a  tree,  to  visit  and  study  at  least  a  dozen 
or  twenty  of  the  acknowledged  best  specimens  of  good  taste  in 
America. 


TV. 

A  FEW  HINTS  ON  LANDSCAPE  GARDENING. 

November,  1851. 

NOVEMBER  isr  above  all  others,  the  tree-planting  month  over 
the  wide  Union.  Accordingly,  every  one  who  has  a  rood  of 
land,  looks  about  him  at  this  season,  to  see  what  can  be  done  to  im- 
prove and  embellish  it.  Some  have  bought  new  places,  where  they 
have  to  build  and  create  every  thing  in  the  way  of  home  scenery, 
and  they,  of  course,  will  have  their  heads  full  of  shade  trees  and 
fruit  trees,  ornamental  shrubs  and  evergreens,  lawns  and  walks,  and 
will  tax  their  imagination  to  the  utmost  to  see  in  the  future  all  the 
varied  beauty  which  they  mean  to  work  out  of  the  present  blank 
fields  that  they  have  taken  in  hand.  These,  look  for  the  most  rapid- 
growing  and  effective  materials,  with  which  to  hide  their  nakedness, 
and  spread  something  of  the  drapery  of  beauty  over  their  premises, 
in  the  shortest  possible  time.  Others,  have  already  a  goodly  stock 
of  foliage  and  shade,  but  the  trees  have  been  planted  without  taste, 
and  by  thinning  out  somewhat  here,  making  an  opening  there,  and 
planting  a  little  yonder,  they  hope  to  break  up  the  stiff  boundaries, 
and  thus  magically  to  convert  awkward  angles  into  graceful  curves, 
and  harmonious  outlines.  Whilst  others,  again,  whose  gardens  and 
pleasure-grounds  have  long  had  their  earnest  devotion,  are  busy  turn- 
ing over  the  catalogues  of  the  nurseries,  in  search  of  rare  and  curious 
trees  and  shrubs,  to  add  still  more  of  novelty  and  interest  to  their 
favorite  lawns  and  walks.  As  the  pleasure  of  creation  may  be  sup- 
posed to  be  the  highest  pleasure,  and  as  the  creation  of  scenery  in 
landscape  gardening  is  the  nearest  approach  to  the  matter  that  we 


120 


LANDSCAPE  GARDENING. 


can  realize  in  a  practical  way,  it  is  not  difficult  to  see  that  Novem- 
ber, dreary  as  it  may  seem  to  the  cockneys  who  have  rushed  back 
to  gas-lights  and  the  paved  streets  of  the  city,  is  full  of  interest,  and 
even  excitement,  to  the  real  lover  of  the  country. 

It  is,  however,  one  of  the  characteristics  of  the  human  mind  to 
overlook  that  which  is  immediately  about  us,  however  admirable, 
and  to  attach  the  greatest  importance  to  whatever  is  rare,  and  diffi- 
cult to  be  obtained.  A  remarkable  illustration  of  the  truth  of  this, 
may  be  found  in  the  ornamental  gardening  of  this  country,  which  is 
noted  for  the  strongly  marked  features  made  in  its  artificial  scenery 
by  certain  poorer  sorts  of  foreign  trees,  as  well  as  the  almost  total 
neglect  of  finer  native  materials,  that  are  indigenous  to  the  soil. 
We  will  undertake  to  say,  for  example,  that  almost  one-half  of  all 
the  deciduous  trees  that  have  been  set  in  ornamental  plantations  for 
the  last  ten  years,  have  been  composed,  for  the  most  part,  of  two 
very  indifferent  foreign  trees — the  ailantus  and  the  silver  poplar. 
When  we  say  indifferent,  we  do  not  mean  to  say  that  such  trees  as 
the  ailantus  and  the  silver  poplar,  are  not  valuable  trees  in  their 
way — that  is,  that  they  are  rapid  growing,  will  thrive  in  all  soils,  and 
are  transplanted  with  the  greatest  facility — suiting  at  once  both  the 
money-making  grower  and  the  ignorant  planter — but  we  do  say, 
that  when  such  trees  as  the  American  elms,  maples  and  oaks,  can 
be  raised  with  so  little  trouble — trees  as  full  of  grace,  dignity,  and 
beauty,  as  any  that  grow  in  any  part  of  the  world — trees,  too,  that 
go  on  gathering  new  beauty  with  age,  instead  of  throwing  up  suck- 
ers that  utterly  spoil  lawns,  or  that  become,  after  the  first  few  years, 
only  a  more  intolerable  nuisance  every  day — it  is  time  to  protest 
against  the  indiscriminate  use  of  such  sylvan  materials — no  matter 
how  much  of  "  heavenly  origin,"  or  "  silvery  "  foliage,  they  may  have 
in  their  well  sounding  names. 

It  is  by  no  means  the  fault  of  the  nurserymen,  that  their  nurse- 
ries abound  in  ailantuses  and  poplars,  while  so  many  of  our  fine 
forest  trees  are  hardly  to  be  found.  The  nurserymen  are  bound  to 
pursue  their  business  so  as  to  make  it  profitable,  and  if  people  ignore 
oaks  and  ashes,  and  adore  poplars  and  ailantuses,  nurserymen  can- 
not be  expected  to  starve  because  the  planting  public  generally  are 
destitute  of  taste. 


A  PEW  HINTS  ON  LANDSCAPE  GARDENING.  121 

What  the  planting  public  need  is  to  have  their  attention  called 
to  the  study  of  nature — to  be  made  to  understand  that  it  is  in  our 
beautiful  woodland  slopes,  with  their  undulating  outlines,  our  broad 
river  meadows  studded  with  single  trees  and  groups  allowed  to  grow 
and  expand  quite  in  a  state  of  free  and  graceful  development,  our 
steep  hills,  sprinkled  with  picturesque  pines  and  firs,  and  our  deep 
valleys,  dark  with  hemlocks  and  cedars,  that  the  real  lessons  in  the 
beautiful  and  picturesque  are  to  be  taken,  which  will  lead  us  to  the 
appreciation  of  the  finest  elements  of  beauty  in  the  embellishment  of 
our  country  places — instead  of  this  miserable  rage  for  "trees  of 
beaven  "  and  other  fashionable  tastes  of  the  like  nature.  There  are, 
for  example,  to  be  found  along  side  of  almost  every  sequestered  lawn 
by  the  road-side  in  the  northern  States,  three  trees  that  are  strikingly 
remafkable  for  beauty  of  foliage,  growth  or  flower,  viz. :  the  tulip- 
tree,  the  sassafras,  and  the  pepperidge.  The  first  is,  for  stately 
elegance,  almost  unrivalled  among  forest  trees :  the  second,  when 
planted  in  cultivated  soil  and  allowed  a  fair  chance,  is  more  beauti- 
ful in  its  diversified  laurel-like  foliage  than  almost  any  foreign  tree 
in  our  pleasure-grounds  :  and  the  last  is  not  surpassed  by  the  orange 
or  the  bay  in  its  glossy  leaves,  deep  green  as  an  emerald  in  summer, 
and  rich  red  as  a  ruby  in  autumn — and  all  of  them  freer  from  the 
attacks  of  insects  than  either  larches,  lindens,  or  elms,  or  a  dozen 
other  favorite  foreign  trees, — besides  being  unaffected  by  the  summer 
sun  where  horse-chestnuts  are  burned  brown,  and  holding  their  foli- 
age through  all  the  season  like  native-born  Americans,  when  foreign- 
ers shrivel  and  die ;  and  yet  we  could  name  a  dozen  nurseries  where 
there  is  a  large  collection  of  ornamental  trees  of  foreign  growth,  but 
neither  a  sassafras,  nor  a  pepperidge,  nor  perhaps  a  tulip-tree  could 
be  had  for  love  or  money. 

There  is  a  large  spirit  of  inquiry  and  a  lively  interest  in  rural 
taste,  awakened  on  every  side  of  us,  at  the  present  time,  from  Maine 
to  the  valley  of  the  Mississippi — but  the  great  mistake  made  by  most 
novices  is  that  they  study  gardens  too  much,  and  nature  too  little. 
Now  gardens,  in  general,  are  stiff  and  graceless,  except  just  so  far  as 
nature,  ever  free  and  flowing,  re-asserts  her  rights,  in  spite  of  man's 
want  of  taste,  or  helps  him  when  he  has  endeavored  to  work  in  her 
own  spirit.    But  the  fields  and  woods  are  full  of  instruction,  and  in 


122 


LANDSCAPE  GARDENING. 


such,  features  of  our  richest  and  most  smiling  and  diversified  country 
must  the  best  hints  for  the  embellishment  of  rural  homes  always  be 
derived.  And  yet  it  is  not  any  portion  of  the  woods  and  fields  that 
we  wish  our  finest  pleasure-ground  sceneiy  precisely  to  resemble. 
We  rather  wish  to  select  from  the  finest  sylvan  features  of  nature, 
and  to  recompose  the  materials  in  a  choicer  manner — by  rejecting 
any  thing  foreign  to  the  spirit  of  elegance  and  refinement  which 
should  characterize  the  landscape  of  the  most  tasteful  country  resi- 
dence— a  landscape  in  which  all  that  is  graceful  and  beautiful  in 
nature  is  preserved — all  her  most  perfect  forms  and  most  harmoni- 
ous lines — but  with  that  added  refinement  which  high  keeping  and 
continual  care  confer  on  natural  beauty,  without  impairing  its  innate 
spirit  of  freedom,  or  the  truth  and  freshness  of  its  intrinsic  character. 
A  planted  elm  of  fifty  years,  which  stands  in  the  midst  of  the  smooth 
lawn  before  yonder  mansion — its  long  graceful  branches  towering 
upwards  like  an  antique  classical  vase,  and  then  sweeping  to  the 
ground  with  a  curve  as  beautiful  as  the  falling  spray  of  a  fountain, 
has  all  the  freedom  of  character  of  its  best  prototypes  in  the  wild 
woods,  with  a  refinement  and  a  perfection  of  symmetry  which  it 
would  be  next  to  impossible  to  find  in  a  wild  tree.  Let  us  take  it 
then  as  the  type  of  all  true  art  in  landscape  gardening — which  selects 
from  natural  materials  that  abound  in  any  country,  its  best  sylvan 
features,  and  by  giving  them  a  better  opportunity  than  they  could 
otherwise  obtain,  brings  about  a  higher  beauty  of  development  and 
a  more  perfect  expression  than  nature  itself  offers.  Study  landscape 
in  nature  more,  and  the  gardens  and  their  catalogues  less, — is  our 
advice  to  the  rising  generation  of  planters,  who  wish  to  embellish 
their  places  in  the  beet  and  purest  taste. 


ON  THE  MISTAKES  OF  CITIZENS  IN  COUNTRY  LIFE. 


January,  1849. 

NO  one  loves  the  country  more  sincerely,  or  welcomes  new  de- 
votees to  the  worship  of  its  pure  altars  more  warmly,  than 
ourselves.  To  those  who  bring  here  hearts  capable  of  understand- 
ing the  lessons  of  truth  and  beauty,  which  the  Good  Creator  has 
written  so  legibly  on  all  his  works  ;  to  those  in  whose  nature  is  im- 
planted a  sentiment  that  interprets  the  tender  and  the  loving,  as  well 
as  the  grand  and  sublime  lessons  of  the  universe,  what  a  life  full  of 
joy,  and  beauty,  and  inspiration,  is  that  of  the  country ;  to  such, 

 "  The  deep  recess  of  dusky  groves, 

Or  forest  where  the  deer  securely  roves, 

The  fall  of  waters  and  the  song  of  birds, 

And  hills  that  echo  to  the  distant  herds, 

Are  luxuries,  excelling  all  the  glare 

The  world  can  boast,  and  her  chief  faVrites  share." 

There  are  those  who  rejoice  in  our  Anglo-Saxon  inheritance  of 
the  love  of  conquest,  and  the  desire  for  boundless  territory, — who 
exult  in  the  "  manifest  destiny  "  of  the  race,  to  plant  the  standard 
of  the  eagle  or  the  lion  in  every  soil,  and  every  zone  of  the  earth's 
surface.  We  rejoice  much  more  in  the  love  of  country  life,  the  en- 
joyment of  nature,  and  the  taste  for  rural  beauty,  which  we  also 
inherit  from  our  Anglo-Saxon  forefathers,  and  to  which,  more  than 
all  else,  they  owe  so  many  of  the  peculiar  virtues  of  the  race. 

With  us,  as  a  people,  retirement  to  country  life,  must  come  to 


124 


LANDSCAPE  GARDENING. 


be  the  universal  pleasure  of  the  nation.  The  successful  statesman, 
professional  man,  merchant,  trader,  mechanic, — all  look  to  it  as  the 
only  way  of  enjoying  the  otium  cum  dignitate ;  and  the  great 
beauty  and  extent  of  our  rural  scenery,  as  well  as  the  absence  of  any 
great  national  capital,  with  its  completeness  of  metropolitan  life, 
must  render  the  country  the  most  satisfactory  place  for  passing  a 
part  of  every  man's  days,  who  has  the  power  of  choice. 

It  is  not  to  be  denied,  however,  that  "  retirement  to  the  country," 
which  is  the  beau  ideal  of  all  the  busy  and  successful  citizens  of  our 
towns,  is  not  always  found  to  be  the  elysium  which  it  has  been 
fondly  imagined.  No  doubt  there  are  good  reasons  why  nothing  in 
this  world  should  afford  perfect  and  uninterrupted  happiness. 

"  The  desire  of  the  moth  for  the  star  " 

might  cease,  if  parks  and  pleasure-grounds  could  fill  up  the  yearn- 
ings of  human  nature,  so  as  to  leave  no  aspirations  for  futurity. 

But  this  is  not  our  present  meaning.  What  we  would  say  is, 
that  numbers  are  disappointed  with  country  life,  and  perhaps  leave 
it  in  disgust,  without  reason,  either  from  mistaken  views  of  its  na- 
ture, of  their  own  incapacities  for  enjoying  it,  or  a  want  of  practical 
ability  to  govern  it. 

We  might  throw  our  views  into  a  more  concrete  shape,  perhaps, 
by  saying  that  the  disappointments  in  country  life  arise  chiefly  from 
two  causes.  The  first  is,  from  expecting  too  much.  The  second,  from 
undertaking  too  much. 

There  are,  we  should  judge  from  observation,  many  citizens  who 
retire  to  the  country,  after  ten  or  twenty  years'  hard  service  in  the 
business  and  society  of  towns,  and  who  carry  with  them  the  most 
romantic  ideas  of  country  life.  They  expect  to  pass  their  time  in 
wandering  over  daisy-spangled  meadows,  and  by  the  side  of  mean- 
dering streams.  They  will  listen  to  the  singing  of  birds,  and  find 
a  perpetual  feast  of  enjoyment  in  the  charm  of  hills  and  mountains. 
Above  all,  they  have  an  extravagant  notion  of  the  purity  and  the 
simplicity  of  country  life.  All  its  intercourse,  as  well  as  all  its  plea- 
sures, are  to  be  so  charmingly  pure,  pastoral,  and  poetical ! 

What  a  disappointment  to  find  that  there  is  prose  even  in  coun- 


ON  THE  MISTAKES  OF  CITIZENS  IN  COUNTRY  LIFE.  125 

try  life, — that  meadows  do  not  give  up  their  sweet  incense,  or  corn- 
fields wave  their  rich  harvests  without  care, — that  "work-folks"  are 
often  unfaithful,  and  oxen  stubborn,  even  an  hundred  miles  from  the 
smoke  of  towns,  or  the  intrigues  of  great  cities. 

Another,  and  a  large  class  of  those  citizens,  who  expect  too  much 
in  the  country,  are  those  who  find,  to  their  astonishment,  that  the 
country  is  dull.  They  really  admire  nature,  and  love  rural  life ;  but, 
though  they  are  ashamed  to  confess  it,  they  are  "  bored  to  death," 
and  leave  the  country  in  despair. 

This  is  a  mistake  which  grows  out  of  their  want  of  knowledge 
of  themselves,  and,  we  may  add,  of  human  nature  generally.  Man 
is  a  social,  as  well  as  a  reflective  and  devout  being.  He  must  have 
friends  to  share  his  pleasures,  to  sympathize  in  his  tastes,  to  enjoy 
with  him  the  delights  of  his  home,  or  these  become  wearisome  and 
insipid.  Cowper  has  well  expressed  the  want  of  this  large  class,  and 
their  suffering,  when  left  wholly  to  themselves  : — 

"  I  praise  the  Frenchman,  his  remark  was  shrewd, — 
How  sweet,  how  passing  sweet,  is  solitude ! 
But  give  me  still  a  friend,  in  my  retreat, 
Whom  I  may  whisper — solitude  is  sweet. 

The  mistake  made  by  this  class,  is  that  of  thinking  only  of  the 
beauty  of  the  scenery  where  they  propose  to  reside,  and  leaving  out 
of  sight  the  equal  charms  of  good  society.  To  them,  the  latter, 
both  by  nature  and  habit,  is  a  necessity,  not  to  be  wholly  waived  for 
converse  of  "  babbling  brooks."  And  since  there  are  numberless 
localities  where  one  may  choose  a  residence  in  a  genial  and  agree- 
able country  neighborhood,  the  remedy  for  this  species  of  discontent 
is  as  plain  as  a  pike-staff*.  One  can  scarcely  expect  friends  to  follow 
one  into  country  seclusion,  if  one  will,  for  the  sake  of  the  picturesque, 
settle  on  the  banks  of  the  Winipissiogee.  These  latter  spots  are  for 
poets,  artists,  naturalists ;  men,  between  whom  and  nature  there  is 
an  intimacy  of  a  wholly  different  kind,  and  who  find  in  the  struc- 
ture of  a  moss  or  the  flight  of  a  water  fowl,  the  text  to  a  whole 
volume  of  inspiration. 

The  third  class  of  the  disappointed,  consists  of  those  who  are 
astonished  at  the  cost  of  life  in  the  country.    They  left  town  not  only 


126 


LANDSCAPE  GARDENING. 


for  the  healthful  breezes  of  the  hill-tops,  but  also  to  make  a  small 
income  do  the  business  of  a  large  one.  To  their  great  surprise,  they 
find  the  country  dear.  Every  thing  they  grow  on  their  land  costs 
them  as  much  as  when  bought  (because  they  produce  it  with  hired 
labor) ;  and  every  thing  they  do  to  improve  their  estate,  calls  for  a 
mint  of  money,  because  with  us  labor  is  always  costly.  But,  in  fact, 
the  great  secret  of  the  matter  is  this ;  they  have  brought  as  many  as 
possible  of  their  town  habits  into  the  country,  and  find  that  a  mo- 
derate income,  applied  in  this  way,  gives  less  here  than  in  town.  To 
live  economically  in  the'  country,  one  must  adopt  the  rustic  habits 
of  country  life.  Labor  must  be  understood,  closely  watched,  and 
even  shared,  to  give  the  farm  products  at  a  cost  likely  to  increase 
the  income  ;  and  pates  defoie  gras,  or perigord pies  must  be  given  up 
for  boiled  mutton  and  turnips.  (And,  between  them  and  us,  it  is  not 
so  difficult  as  might  be  imagined,  when  the  mistress  of  the  house  is 
a  woman  of  genius,  to  give  as  refined  an  expression  to  country  life 
with  the  latter  as  the  former.  The  way  of  doing  things  is,  in  these 
matters,  as  important  as  the  means.) 

Now  a  word  or  two,  touching  the  second  source  of  evil  in  coun- 
try life, — undertaking  too  much. 

There  is,  apparently,  as  much  fascination  in  the  idea  of  a  large 
landed  estate  as  in  the  eye  of  a  serpent.  Notwithstanding  our  in- 
stitutions, our  habits,  above  all  the  continual  distribution  of  our 
fortunes,  every  thing,  in  short,  teaching  us  so  plainly  the  folly  of 
improving  large  landed  estates,  human  nature  and  the  love  of  dis- 
tinction, every  now  and  then,  triumph  over  all.  What  a  homily 
might  there  not  be  written  on  the  extravagance  of  Americans ! 
We  can  point  at  once  to  half  a  dozen  examples  of  country  resi- 
dences, that  have  cost  between  one  and  two  hundred  thousand  dol- 
lars ;  and  every  one  of  which  either  already  has  been,  or  soon  will 
be,  enjoyed  by  others  than  those  who  constructed  them.  This  is 
the  great  and  glaring  mistake  of  our  wealthy  men,  ambitious  of 
taste, — that  of  supposing  that  only  by  large  places  and  great  expen- 
ditures can  the  problem  of  rural  beauty  and  enjoyment  be  solved. 
The  truth  is,  that  with  us,  a  large  fortune  does  ^not  and  cannot  (at 
least  at  the  present  time)  produce  the  increased  enjoyment  which  it 
does  abroad.    Large  estates,  large  houses,  large  establishments, 


ON  THE  MISTAKES  OF  CITIZENS  IN  COUNTRY  LIFE.  127 


only  make  slaves  of  their  possessors ;  for  the  service,  to  be  done 
daily  by  those  who  must  hold  aloft  this  dazzling  canopy  of  wealth, 
is  so  indifferently  performed,  servants  are  so  time-serving  and  un- 
worthy in  this  country,  where  intelligent  labor  finds  independent 
channels  for  itself,  that  the  lord  of  the  manor  finds  his  life  overbur- 
dened with  the  drudgery  of  watching  his  drudges. 

Hence,  the  true  philosophy  of  living  in  America,  is  to  be  found 
in  moderate  desires,  a  moderate  establishment,  and  moderate  expen- 
ditures. We  have  seen  so  many  more  examples  of  success  in  those 
of  even  less  moderate  size,  that  we  had  almost  said,  with  Cowley 
"  a  little  cheerful  house,  a  little  company,  and  a  very  little  feast." 

But  among  those  who  undertake  too  much,  by  far  the  largest 
class  is  that  whose  members  do  so  through  ignorance  of  what  is  to 
be  done. 

Although  the  world  is  pretty  well  aware  of  the  existence  of  pro- 
fessional builders  and  planters,  still  the  majority  of  those  who  build 
and  plant,  in  this  country,  do  it  without  the  advice  of  experienced 
persons.  There  is,  apparently,  a  latent  conviction  at  the  bottom  of 
every  man's  heart,  that  he  can  build  a  villa  or  a  cottage,  and  lay 
out  its  grounds  in  a  more  perfect,  or,  at  least,  a  muck  more  satisfac- 
tory manner  than  any  of  his  predecessors  or  contemporaries.  Fatal 
delusion  !  One  may  plead  his  own  case  in  law,  or  even  write  a  lay 
sermon,  like  Sir  Walter  Scott,  with  more  chance  of  success  than  he 
will  have  in  realizing,  in  solid  walls,  the  perfect  model  of  beauty  and 
convenience  that  floats  dimly  in  his  head.  We  mean  this  to  apply 
chiefly  to  the  production  as  a  work  of  art. 

As  a  matter  of  economy,  it  is  still  worse.  If  the  improver 
selects  an  experienced  architect,  and  contracts  with  a  responsible 
and  trustworthy  builder,  he  knows  within  twenty  per  cent.,  at  the 
farthest,  of  what  his  edifice  will  cost.  If  he  undertakes  to  play  the 
amateur,  and  corrects  and  revises  his  work,  as  most  amateurs  do, 
while  the  house  is  in  progress,  he  will  have  the  mortification  of 
paying  twice  as  much  as  he  should  have  done,  without  any  just  sat- 
isfaction at  last. 

What  is  the  result  of  this  course  of  proceeding  of  the  new  resi- 
dent in  the  country  ?  That  he  has  obtained  a  large  and  showy 
house,  of  which,  if  he  is  alive  to  improvement,  he  will  live  to  regret 


128 


LANDSCAPE  GARDENING. 


the  bad  taste ;  and  that  he  has  laid  the  foundation  of  expenditures 
far  beyond  his  income. 

He  finds  himself  now  in  a  dilemma,  of  which  there  are  two 
horns.  One  of  them  is  the  necessity  of  laying  out  and  keeping  up 
large  pleasure-grounds,  gardens,  &c,  to  correspond  to  the  style  and 
character  of  his  house.  The  other  is  to  allow  the  house  to  remain 
in  the  midst  of  beggarly  surroundings  of  meadow  and  stubble ;  or, 
at  the  most,  with  half  executed  and  miserably  kept  grounds  on 
every  side  of  it. 

Nothing  can  be  more  unsatisfactory  than  either  of  these  posi- 
tions. If  he  is  seduced  into  expenditures  en  grand  seigneur,  to  keep 
up  the  style  in  which  the  mansion  or  villa  has  been  erected,  he 
finds  that  instead  of  the  peace  of  mind  and  enjoyment  which  he 
expected  to  find  in  the  country,  he  is  perpetually  nervous  about  the 
tight  place  in  his  income, — constantly  obliged  to  make  an  effort  to 
maintain  that  which,  when  maintained,  gives  no  more  real  pleasure 
than  a  residence  on  a  small  scale. 

If,  on  the  other.hand,  he  stops  short,  like  a  prudent  man,  at  the 
mighty  show  of  figures  at  the  bottom  of  the  builder's  accounts, 
and  leaves  all  about  in  a  crude  and  unfinished  condition,  then  he 
has  the  mortification,  if  possessed  of  the  least  taste,  of  knowing  that 
all  the  grace  with  which  he  meant  to  surround  his  country  home, 
has  eluded  his  grasp  ;  that  he  fives  in  the  house  of  a  noble,  set  in 
the  fields  of  a  sluggard.  This  he  feels  the  more  keenly,  after  a 
walk  over  the  grounds  of  some  wiser  or  more  fortunate  neighbor, 
who  has  been  able  to  sweep  the  whole  circle  of  taste,  and  better  ad- 
vised, has  realized  precisely  that  which  has  escaped  the  reach  of 
our  unfortunate  improver.  Is  it  any  marvel  that  the  latter  should 
find  himself  disappointed  in  the  pleasures  of  a  country  life  ? 

Do  we  thus  portray  the  mistakes  of  country  life  in  order  to  dis 
suade  persons  from  retiring  ?  Far  from  it.  There  is  no  one  who 
woidd  more  willingly  exhibit  its  charms  in  the  most  glowing  colors. 
But  we  would  not  hue  the  traveller  into  an  Arcadia,  without  telling 
him  that  there  are  not  only  golden  fruits,  but  also  others,  which 
may  prove  Sodom-apples  if  ignorantly  plucked.  We  would  not 
hang  garlands  of  flowers  over  dangerous  pits  and  fearful  chasms.  It 
is  rather  our  duty  and  pleasure  loudly  to  warn  those  who  are  likely 


ON  THE  MISTAKES  OF  CITIZENS  IN  COUNTRY  LIFE.  129 

to  fall  into  such  errors,  and  to  open  their  eyes  to  the  danger  that 
lies  in  their  paths ;  for  the  country  is  really  full  of  interest  to  those 
who  are  fitted  to  understand  it ;  nature  is  full  of  beauty  to  those 
■who  approach  her  simply  and  devoutly ;  and  rural  life  is  full  of  pure 
and  happy  influences,  to  those  who  are  wise  enough  rightly  to  ac- 
cept and  enjoy  them. 

What  most  retired  citizens  need,  in  country  life,  are  objects  of 
real  interest,  society,  occupation. 

We  place  first,  something  of  permanent  interest ;  for,  after  all, 
this  is  the  great  desideratum.  All  men,  with  the  fresh  breath  of  the 
hay-fields  of  boyhood  floating  through  their  memory,  fancy  that 
farming  itself  is  the  grand  occupation  and  panacea  of  country  life. 
This  is  a  profound  error.  There  is  no  permanent  interest  in  any 
pursuit  which  we  are  not  successful  in  ;  and  farming,  at  least  in  the 
older  States,  is  an  art  as  difficult  as  navigation.  We  mean  by  this, 
profitable  farming,  for  there  is  no  constant  satisfaction  in  any  other ; 
and  though  some  of  the  best  farmers  in  the  Union  are  retired  citi- 
zens, yet  not  more  than  one  in  twenty  succeeds  in  making  his  land 
productive.  It  is  well  enough,  therefore,  for  the  citizen  about  retir- 
ing, to  look  upon  this  resource  with  a  little  diffidence. 

If  our  novice  is  fond  of  horticulture,  there  is  some  hope  for  him. 
In  the  first  place,  if  he  pursues  it  as  an  amusement,  it  is  inexhausti- 
ble, because  there  is  no  end  to  new  fruits  and  flowers,  or  to  the  combina- 
tions which  he  may  produce  by  their  aid.  And  besides  this,  he  need 
not  draw  heavily  on  his  banker,  or  purchase  a  whole  township  to 
attain  his  object.  Only  grant  a  downright  taste  for  fruits  and  flowers, 
and  a  man  may  have  occupation  and  amusement  for  years,  in  an 
hundred  feet  square  of  good  soil. 

Among  the  happiest  men  in  the  country,  as  we  have  hinted,  are 
those  who  find  an  intense  pleasure  in  nature,  either  as  artists  or  nat- 
uralists. To  such  men,  there  is  no  weariness ;  and  they  should 
choose  a  country  residence,  not  so  much  with  a  view  to  what  can 
be  made  by  improving  it,  as  to  where  it  is,  what  grand  and  beautiful 
scenery  surrounds  it,  and  how  much  inspiration  its  neighborhood 
will  offer  them. 

Men  of  society,  as  we  have  already  said,  should,  in  settling  in 
the  country,  never  let  go  the  cord  that  binds  them  to  their  fellows. 
9 


130  LANDSCAPE  GARDENING. 


A  suburban  country  life  will  most  nearly  meet  their  requirements ; 
or,  at  least,  they  should  select  a  site  where  some  friends  of  congenial 
minds  have  already  made  a  social  sunshine  in  the  "  wilderness  of 
woods  and  forests." 

Above  all,  we  should  counsel  all  persons  not  to  underrate  the 
cost  of  building  and  improving  in  the  country.  Do  not  imagine 
that  a  villa,  or  even  a  cottage  ornee,  takes  care  of  itself.  If  you 
wish  for  rural  beauty,  at  a  cheap  rate,  either  on  the  grand  or  the 
moderate  scale,  choose  a  spot  where  the  two  features  of  home  scenery 
are  trees  and  grass.  You  may  have  five  hundred  acres  of  natural 
park — that  is  to  say,  fine  old  woods,  tastefully  opened,  and  threaded 
with  walks  and  drives,  for  less  cost,  in  preparation  and  annual  out- 
lay, than  it  will  require  to  maintain  five  acres  of  artificial  pleasure- 
grounds.  A  pretty  little  natural  glen,  filled  with  old  trees  and  made 
alive  by  a  clear  perennial  stream,  is  often  a  cheaper  and  more  un- 
wearying source  of  enjoyment  than  the  gayest  flower-garden.  Not 
that  we  mean  to  disparage  beautiful  parks,  pleasure-grounds,  or 
flower-gardens ;  we  only  wish  our  readers  ,  about  settling  in  the  coun- 
try to  understand  that  they  do  not  constitute  the  highest  and  most 
expressive  kind  of  rural  beauty, — as  they  certainly  do  the  most  ex- 
pensive. 

It  is  so  hard  to  be  content  with  simplicity !  Why,  we  have 
seen  thousands  expended  on  a  few  acres  of  ground,  and  the  result 
was,  after  all,  only  a  showy  villa,  a  green-house,  and  a  flower-gardeD, 
— not  half  so  captivating  to  the  man  of  true  taste  as  a  cottage  em- 
bosomed in  shrubbery,  a  little  park  filled  with  a  few  fine  trees,  a  lawn 
kept  short  by  a  flock  of  favorite  sheep,  and  a  knot  of  flowers  woven 
gayly  together  in  the  green  turf  of  the  terrace  under  the  parlor  win- 
dows. But  the  man  of  wealth  so  loves  to  astonish  the  admiring 
world  by  the  display  of  riches,  and  it  is  so  rare  to  find  those  who 
comprehend  the  charm  of  grace  and  beauty  in  their  simple  dress ! 


VL 


CITIZENS  RETIRING-  TO  THE  COUNTRY. 

February,  1852. 

IN  a  former  volume  we  offered  a  few  words  to  our  readers  on  the 
subject  of  choosing  a  country-seat.  As  the  subject  was  only 
slightly  touched  upon,  we  propose  to  say  something  more  regarding 
it  now. 

There  are  few  or  no  magnificent  country-seats  in  America,  if  we 
take  as  a  standard  such  residences  as  Chatsworth,  Woburn,  Blen- 
heim, and  other  well  known  English  places — with  parks  a  dozen 
miles  round,  and  palaces  in  their  midst  larger  than  our  largest  pub- 
lic buildings.  But  any  one  who  notices  in  the  suburbs  of  our  towns 
and  cities,  and  on  the  borders  of  our  great  rivers  and  railroads,  in 
the  older  parts  of  the  Union,  the  rapidity  with  which  cottages  and 
villa  residences  are  increasing,  each  one  of  which  costs  from  three, 
to  thirty  or  forty  thousand  dollars,  will  find  that  the  aggregate 
amount  of  money  expended  in  American  rural  homes,  for  the  last 
ten  years,  is  perhaps  larger  than  has  been  spent  in  any  part  of  the 
world.  Our  Anglo-Saxon  nature  leads  our  successful  business  men 
always  to  look  forward  to  a  home  out  of  the  city ;  and  the  ease  with 
which  freehold  property  may  be  obtained  here,  offers  every  encour- 
agement to  the  growth  of  the  natural  instinct  for  landed  proprietoi- 
ship. 

This  large  class  of  citizens  turning  country-folk,  which  every  sea- 
son's revolution  is  increasing,  which  every  successful  business  year 
greatly  augments,  and  every  fortune  made  in  California  helps  to 
swell  in  number,  is  one  which,  perhaps,  spends  its  means  more  freely, 


132 


LANDSCAPE  GARDENING 


and  with  more  of  the  feeling  of  getting  its  full  value,  than  any  other 
class. 

But  do  they  get  its  full  value  ?  Are  there  not  many  who  are 
disgusted  with  the  country  after  a  few  years'  trial,  mainly  he  cause 
they  find  country  places,  and  country  life,  as  they  have  tried  them, 
more  expensive  than  a  residence  in  town  ?  And  is  there  not  some- 
thing that  may  be  done  to  warn  the  new  beginners  of  the  dangers 
of  the  voyage  of  pleasure  on  which  they  are  about  to  embark,  with 
the  fullest  faith  that  it  is  all  smooth  water  ? 

We  think  so  :  and  as  we  are  daily  brought  into  contact  with 
precisely  this  class  of  citizens,  seeking  for  and  building  country 
places,  we  should  be  glad  to  be  able  to  offer  some  useful  hints  to 
those  who  are  not  too  wise  to  find  them  of  value. 

Perhaps  the  foundation  of  all  the  miscalculations  that  arise,  as  to 
expenditure  in  forming  a  country  residence,  is,  that  citizens  are  in 
the  habit  of  thinking  every  thing  in  the  country  cheap.  Land  in  the 
town  is  sold  by  the  foot,  in  the  country  by  the  acre.  The  price  of  a 
good  house  in  town  is,  perhaps,  three  times  the  cost  of  one  of  the 
best  farms  in  the  country.  The  town  buys  eveiy  thing  :  the  country 
raises  eveiy  thing.  To  live  on  your  own  estate,  be  it  one  acre  or  a 
thousand,  to  have  your  own  milk,  butter  and  eggs,  to  raise  your  own 
chickens  and  gather  your  own  strawberries,  with  nature  to  keep  the 
account  instead  of  your  grocer  and  market-woman,  that  is  something 
like  a  rational  life ;  and  more  than  rational,  it  must  be  cheap.  So 
argues  the  citizen  about  retiring,  not  only  to  enjoy  his  otium  cum 
dignitate,  but  to  make  a  thousand  dollars  of  his  income,  produce 
him  more  of  the  comforts  of  life  than  two  thousand  did  before. 

Well ;  he  goes  into  the  covotry.  He  buys  a  farm  (run  down 
with  poor  tenants  and  bad  tillage).  He  builds  a  new  house,  with 
his  own  ignorance  instead  of  architect  and  master-builder,  and  is 
cheated  roundly  by  those  who  take  advantage  of  this  masterly  igno- 
rance in  the  matter  of  bricks  and  mortar ;  or  he  repairs  an  old  house 
at  the  full  cost  of  a  new  one,  and  has  an  unsatisfactory  dwelling  for 
ever  afterwards.  He  undertakes  high  farming,  and  knowing  noth- 
ing of  the  practical  economy  of  husbandry,  every  bushel  of  corn  that 
he  raises  costs  him  the  price  of  a  bushel  and  a  half  in  the  market. 
Used  in  town  to  a  neat  and  orderly  condition  of  his  premises,  he  is 


CITIZENS  RETIRING  TO  THE  COUNTRY. 


133 


disgusted  with  old  tottering  fences,  half  drained  fields  and  worn-out 
pastures,  and  employs  all  the  laboring  force  of  the  neighborhood  to 
put  his  grounds  in  good  order. 

Now  there  is  no  objection  to  all  this  for  its  own  sake.  On  the 
contrary,  good  buildings,  good  fences,  and  rich  pasture  fields  are 
what  especially  delight  us  in  the  country.  What  then  is  the  reason 
that,  as  the  country  place  gets  to  wear  a  smiling  aspect,  its  citizen 
owner  begins  to  loot  serious  and  unhappy  ?  Why  is  it  that  country 
life  does  not  satisfy  and  content  him  ?  Is  the  country,  which  all 
poets  and  philosophers  have  celebrated  as  the  Arcadia  of  this  world, — 
is  the  country  treacherous  ?  Is  nature  a  cheat,  and  do  seed-time 
and  harvest  conspire  against  the  peace  of  mind  of  the  retired  citizen  ? 

Alas !  It  is  a  matter  of  money.  Every  thing  seems  to  be  a  mat- 
ter of  money  now-a-days.  The  country  life  of  the  old  world,  of  the 
poets  and  romancers,  is  cheap.  The  country  life  of  our  republic  is 
dear.  It  is  for  the  good  of  the  many  that  labor  should  be  high,  and 
it  is  high  labor  that  makes  country  life  heavy  and  oppressive  to  such 
men — only  because  it  shows  a  balance,  increasing  year  after  year, 
on  the  wrong  side  of  the  ledger.  Here  is  the  source  of  all  the  trou- 
ble and  dissatisfaction  in  what  may  be  called  the  country  life  of 
gentlemen  amateurs,  or  citizens,  in  this  country — "it  don't  pay." 
Land  is  cheap,  nature  is  beautiful,  the  country  is  healthy,  and  all 
these  conspire  to  draw  our  well-to-do  citizen  into  the  country.  But 
labor  is  dear,  experience  is  dearer,  and  a  series  of  experiments  in 
unprofitable  crops  the  dearest  of  all ;  and  our  citizen  friend,  himself, 
as  we  have  said,  is  in  the  situation  of  a  man  who  has  set  out  on  a 
delightful  voyage,  on  a  smooth  sea,  and  with  a  cheerful  ship's  com- 
pany ;  but  who  discovers,  also,  that  the  ship  has  sprung  a  leak — not 
large  enough  to  make  it  necessary  to  call  all  hands  to  the  pump — 
not  large  enough  perhaps  to  attract  any  body's  attention  but  his  own, 
but  quite  large  enough  to  make  it  certain  that  he  must  leave  her  or 
be  swamped — and  quite  large  enough  to  make  his  voyage  a  serious 
piece  of  business. 

Every  thing  which  a  citizen  does  in  the  country,  costs  him  an  in- 
credible sum.  In  Europe  (heaven  save  the  masses),  you  may  have 
the  best  of  laboring  men  for  twenty  or  thirty  cents  a  day.  Here 
you  must  pay  them  a  dollar,  at  least  our  amateur  must,  though  the 


134 


LANDSCAPE  GARDENING. 


farmers  contrive  to  get  their  labor  for  eight  or  ten  dollars  a  month 
and  board.  The  citizen's  home  once  built,  he  looks  upon  all  heavy 
expenditures  as  over ;  but  how  many  hundreds — perhaps  thousands, 
has  he  not  paid  for  out-buildings,  for  fences,  for  roads,  &c.  Cutting 
down  yonder  hill,  which  made  an  ugly  blotch  in  the  view, — it 
looked  like  a  trifling  task ;  yet  there  were  $500  swept  clean  out  of 
his  bank  account,  and  there  seems  almost  nothing  to  show  for  it. 
You  would  not  believe  now  that  any  hill  ever  stood  there — or  at 
least  that  nature  had  not  arranged  it  all  (as  you  feel  she  ought  to 
have  done),  just  as  you  see  it.  Your  favorite  cattle  and  horses  have 
died,  and  tbe  flock  of  sheep  have  been  sadly  diminished  by  the  dogs, 
all  to  be  replaced — and  a  careful  account  of  the  men's  time,  labor 
and  manure  on  the  grain  fields,  shows  that  for  some  reason  tbat  you 
cannot  understand,  the  crop — which  is  a  fair  one,  has  actually  cost 
you  a  trifle  more  than  it  is  worth  in  a  good  market. 

To  cut  a  long  story  short,  the  larger  part  of  our  citizens  who  re- 
tire upon  a  farm  to  make  it  a  country  residence,  are  not  aware  of 
the  fact,  that  capital  cannot  be  profitably  employed  on  land  in  the 
Atlantic  States  without  a  thoroughly  practical  knowledge  of  farm- 
ing. A  close  and  systematic  economy,  upon  a  good  soil,  may 
enable,  and  does  enable  some  gentlemen  farmers  that  we  could 
name,  to  make  a  good  profit  out  of  their  land — but  citizens  who 
launch  boldly  into  farming,  hiring  farm  laborers  at  high  prices,  and 
trusting  operations  to  others  that  should  be  managed  under  the 
master's  eye — are  very  likely  to  find  their  farms  a  sinking  fund  that 
will  drive  them  back  into  business  again. 

To  be  happy  in  any  business  or  occupation  (and  countiy  life  on 
a  farm  is  a  matter  of  business),  we  must  have  some  kind  of  success 
in  it ;  and  there  is  no  success  without  profit,  and  no  profit  without 
practical  knowledge  of  farming. 

Tbe  lesson  that  we  would  deduce  from  these  reflections  is  this ; 
tbat  no  mere  amateur  should  buy  a  large  farm  for  a  country  resi- 
dence, with  the  expectation  of  finding  pleasure  and  profit  in  it  for 
the  rest  of  his  life,  unless,  like  some  citizens  that  we  have  known — 
rare  exceptions — they  have  a  genius  for  all  manner  of  business,  and 
can  master  the  whole  of  farming,  as  they  would  learn  a  running- 
hand  in  six  easy  lessons.    Farming,  in  the  older  States,  where  the 


CITIZENS  RETIRING  TO  THE  COUNTRY. 


135 


natural  wealth  of  the  soil  has  been  exhausted,  is  not  a  profitable 
business  for  amateurs — but  quite  the  reverse.  And  a  citizen  wbo 
has  a  sufficient  income  without  farming,'  had  better  not  damage  it 
by  engaging  in  so  expensive  an  amusement. 

*  "  But  we  must  have  something  to  do  ;  we  have  been  busy  near 
all  our  lives,  and  cannot  retire  into  the  country  to  fold  our  hands 
and  sit  in  the  sunshine  to  be  idle."  Precisely  so.  But  you  need 
not  therefore  ruin  yourself  on  a  large  farm.  Do  not  be  ambitious 
of  being  great  landed  proprietors.  Assume  that  you  need  occupation 
and  interest,  and  buy  a  small  piece  of  ground — a  few  acres  only — 
as  few  as  you  please — but  without  any  regard  for  profit.  Leave 
that  to  those  who  have  learned  farming  in  a  more  practical  school. 
You  think,  perhaps,  that  you  can  find  nothing  to  do  on  a  few  acres 
of  ground.  But  that  is  the  greatest  of  mistakes.  A  balf  a  dozen 
acres,  the  capacities  of  which  are  fully  developed,  will  give  you 
more  pleasure  than  five  hundred  poorly  cultivated.  And  the 
advantage  for  you  is,  that  you  can,  upon  your  few  acres,  spend  just 
as  little  or  just  as  much  as  you  please.  If  you  wish  to  be  prudent, 
lay  out  your  little  estate  in  a  simple  way,  with  grass  and  trees,  and 
a  few  walks,  and  a  single  man  may  then  take  care  of  it.  If  you 
wish  to  indulge  your  taste,  you  may  fill  it  with  shrubberies,  and 
arboretums,  and  conservatories,  and  flower-gardens,  till  every  tree 
and  plant  and  fruit  in  the  whole  vegetable  kingdom,  of  really 
superior  beauty  and  interest,  is  in  your  collection.  Or,  if  you  wish 
to  turn  a  penny,  you  will  find  it  easier  to  take  up  certain  fruits  or 
plants  and  grow  them  to  high  perfection  so  as  to  command  a  profit 
in  the  market,  than  you  will  to  manage  the  various  operations 
of  a  large  farm.  We  could  point  to  ten  acres  of  ground  from  which 
a  larger  income  has  been  produced  than  from  any  farm  of  five  hun- 
dred acres  in  the  country.  Gardening,  too,  offers  more  variety 
of  interest  to  a  citizen  than  farming ;  its  operations  are  less  rude 
and  toilsome,  and  its  pleasures  more  immediate  and  refined.  Citi- 
zens, ignorant  of  farming,  should,  therefore,  buy  small  places,  rather 
than  large  ones,  if  they  wish  to  consult  their  own  true  interest  and 
happiness. 

But  some  of  our  readers,  who  have  tried  the  thing,  may  say  that 
it  is  a  very  expensive  thing  to  settle  oneself  and  get  well  established, 


136 


LANDSCAPE  GARDENING. 


even  on  a  small  place  in  the  country.  And  so  it  is,  if  we  proceed 
upon  the  fallacy,  as  we  have  said,  that  every  thing  in  the  country  is 
cheap.  Labor  is  dear ;  it  costs  you  dearly  to-day,  and  it  will  cost 
you  dearly  to-morrow,  and  the  next  year.  Therefore,  in  selecting  a 
site  for  a  home  in  the  country,  always  remember  to  choose  a  site 
where  nature  has  done  as  much  as  possible  for  you.  Don't  say  to 
yourself  as  many  have  done  before  you — "  Oh  !  I  want  occupation, 
and  I  rather  like  the  new  place — raw  and  naked  though  it  may 
be.  /  will  create  a  paradise  for  myself.  I  will  cut  down  yonder 
hill  that  intercepts  the  view,  I  will  level  and  slope  more  gracefully 
yonder  rude  bank,  I  will  terrace  this  rapid  descent,  I  will  make  a 
lake  in  yonder  hollow."  Yes,  all  this  you  may  do  for  occupation, 
and  find  it  very  delightful  occupation  too,  if  you  have  the  income 
of  Mr.  Astor.  Otherwise,  after  you  have  spent  thousands  in  creat- 
ing your  paradise,  and  chance  to  go  to  some  friend  who  has  bought 
all  the  graceful  undulations,  and  sloping  lawns,  and  sheets  of  water, 
natural,  ready  made — as  they  may  be  bought  in  thousands  of  purely 
natural  places  in  America,  for  a  few  hundred  dollars,  it  will  give 
you  a  species  of  pleasure-ground-dyspepsia  to  see  how  foolishly  you 
have  wasted  your  money.  And  this,  more  especially,  when  you 
find,  as  the  possessor  of  the  most  finished  place  in  America  finds, 
that  he  has  no  want  of  occupation,  and  that  far  from  being  finished, 
he  has  only  begun  to  elicit  the  highest  beauty,  keeping  and  com- 
pleteness of  which  his  place  is  capable. 

It  would  be  easy  to  say  a  great  deal  more  in  illustration  of  the 
mistakes  continually  made  by  citizens  going  into  the  country ;  of 
their  false  ideas  of  the  cost  of  doing  every  thing  ;  of  the  profits  of 
farming ;  of  their  own  talent  for  making  an  income  from  the  land, 
and  their  disappointment,  growing  out  of  a  failure  of  all  their  theo- 
ries and  expectations.  But  we  have  perhaps  said  enough  to  cause- 
some  of  our  readers  about  to  take  the  step,  to  consider  whether  they 
mean  to  look  upon  country  life  as  a  luxury  they  are  willing  to  pay 
so  much  a  year  for,  or  as  a  means  of  adding  something  to  their 
incomes.  Even  in  the  former  case,  they  are  likely  to  underrate  the 
cost  of  the  luxury,  and  in  the  latter  they  must  set  about  it  with  the 
frugal  and  industrial  habits  of  the  real  farmer,  or  they  will  fail.  The 
safest  way  is  to  attempt  but  a  modest  residence  at  first,  and  let 


CITIZENS  RETIRING-  TO  THE  COUNTRY. 


137 


the  more  elaborate  details  be  developed,  if  at  all,  only  when  we 
have  learned  how  much  country  life  costs,  and  how  far  the  expendi- 
ture is  a  wise  one.  Fortunately,  it  is  art,  and  not  nature,  which 
costs  money  in  the  country,  and  therefore  the  beauty  of  lovely 
scenery  and  fine  landscapes  (the  right  to  enjoy  miles  of  which  may 
often  be  had  for  a  trifle),  in  connection  with  a  very  modest  and 
simple  place,  will  give  more  lasting  satisfaction  than  gardens  and 
pleasure-grounds  innumerable.  Persons  of  moderate  means  should, 
for  this  reason,  always  secure,  in  their  fee  simple,  as  much  as  possi- 
ble of  natural  beauty,  and  undertake  the  elaborate  improvement  of 
only  small  places,  which  will  not  become  a  burden  to  them.  Million- 
naires,  of  course,  we  leave  out  of  the  question.  They  may  do  what 
they  like.  But  most  Americans,  buying  a  country  place,  may  take 
it  for  their  creed,  that 


Man  want9  but  little  land  below, 
For  wants  that  little  dear. 


vn. 


*    A  TALK  ABOUT  PUBLIC  PARKS  AND  GARDENS. 

October,  1848. 

EDITOR.    I  am  heartily  glad  to  see  you  home  again.    I  almost 
fear,  however,  from  your  long  residence  on  the  continent,  that 
you  have  become  a  foreigner  in  all  your  sympathies. 

Traveller.  Not  a  whit.  I  come  home  to  the  United  States 
more  thoroughly  American  than  ever.  The  last  few  months'  resi- 
dence in  Europe,  with  revolutions,  tumult,  bloodshed  on  every  side, 
people  continually  crying  for  liberty — who  mean  by  that  word,  the 
privilege  of  being  responsible  to  neither  God  nor  governments — 
ouvriers,  expecting  wages  to  drop  like  manna  from  heaven,  not  as  a 
reward  for  industry,  but  as  a  sign  that  the  millennium  has  come  ; 
republics,  in  which  every  other  man  you  meet  is  a  soldier,  sworn  to 
preserve  "liberty,  fraternity,  equality,"  at'  the  point  of  the  bayonet ; 
from  all  this  unsatisfactory  movement — the  more  unsatisfactory  be- 
cause its  aims  are  almost  beyond  the  capacities  of  a  new  nation,  and 
entirely  impossible  to  an  old  people — I  repeat,  I  come  home  again 
to  rejoice  most  fervently  that  "  I,  too,  am  an  American." 

Ed.  After  five  years  expatriation,  pray  tell  me  what  strikes  you 
most  on  returning  ? 

Trav.  Most  of  all,  the  wonderful,  extraordinary,  unparalleled 
growth  of  our  country.  It  seems  to  me,  after  the  general,  steady, 
quiet  torpor  of  the  old  world  (which  those  great  convulsions  have 
only  latterly  broken),  to  be  the  moving  and  breathing  of  a  robust 
young  giant,  compared  with  the  crippled  and  feeble  motions  of  an 
exhausted  old  man.    Why,  it  is  difficult  for  me  to  "  catch  up "  to 


A  TALK  ABOUT  PUBLIC  PARKS  AND  GARDENS. 


139 


my  countrymen,  or  to  bridge  over  the  gap  which  five  years  have 
made  in  the  condition  of  things.  From  a  country  looked  upon  with 
contempt  by  monarchists,  and  hardly  esteemed  more  than  a  third- 
rate  power  by  republicans  abroad,  we  have  risen  to  the  admitted 
first  rank  every  where.  To  say,  on  the  continent,  now,  that  you  are 
from  the  "  United  States,"  is  to  dilate  the  pupil  of  every  eye  with  a 
sort  of  glad  welcome.  The  gates  of  besieged  cities  open  to  you, 
and  the  few  real  republicans  who  have  just  conceptions  of  the  ends 
of  government,  take  you  by  the  hand  as  if  you  had  a  sort  of  lib- 
erty-magnetism in  your  touch.  A  countiy  that  exports,  in  a  single 
year,  more  than  fifty-three  millions  worth  of  bread  stuffs,  that  con- 
quers a  neighboring  nation  without  any  apparent  expenditure  of 
strength,  and  swallows  up  a  deluge  of  foreign  emigrants  every 
season, — tmning  all  that  "  raw  material,"  by  a  sort  of  wonderful 
vital  force,  into  good  citizens, — such  a  country,  I  say,  is  felt  to  have 
an  avoirdupois  about  it,  that  weighs  heavily  in  the  scale  of  nations. 

Ed.  I  am  glad  to  see  you  so  sound  and  patriotic.  Very  few 
men  who  go  abroad,  like  yourself,  to  enjoy  the  art  and  antiquities 
of  the  old  world,  come  home  without  "  turned  heads."  The  great- 
ness of  the  past,  and  the  luxury  and  completeness  of  the  present 
forms  of  civilization  abroad,  seize  hold  of  them,  to  the  exclusion  of 
every  thing  else ;  and  they  return  home  lamenting  always  and  for 
ever  the  "  purple  and  fine  linen  "  left  behind. 

Trav.  "  Purple  and  fine  linen,"  when  they  clothe  forms  of  life- 
less majesty,  are  far  inferior,  in  the  eyes  of  any  sensible  person,  to 
linsey-woolsey,  enwrapping  the  body  of  a  free,  healthy  man.  But 
there  are  some  points  of  civilization — good  points,  too — that  we  do 
not  yet  understand,  which  are  well  understood  abroad,  and  which 
are  well  worth  attention  here  at  home,  at  the  present  moment.  In 
fact,  I  came  here  to  talk  a  little,  about  one  or  two  of  these,  to-day. 

Ed.    Talk  on,  with  all  my  heart. 

Trav.  I  dare  say  you  will  be  surprised  to  hear  me  say  that  the 
French  and  Germans — difficult  as  they  find  it  to  be  republican,  in  a 
political  sense — are  practically  far  more  so,  in  many  of  the  customs 
of  social  life,  than  Americans. 

Ed.    Such  as  what,  pray  ? 

Trav.    Public  enjoyments,  open  to  all  classes  of  people,  pro- 


140 


LANDSCAPE  GARDENING. 


vided  at  public  cost,  maintained  at  public  expense,  and  enjoyed 
daily  and  hourly,  by  all  classes  of  persons. 

Ed.  Picture  galleries,  libraries,  and  the  like,  I  suppose  you  al- 
lude to? 

Trav.  Yes ;  but  more  especially  at  the  present  moment,  I  am 
thinking  of  public  parks  and  gardens — those  salubrious  and 
wholesome  breathing  places,  provided  in  the  midst  of,  or  upon  the 
suburbs  of  so  many  towns  on  the  continent — full  of  really  grand 
and  beautiful  trees,  fresh  grass,  fountains,  and,  in  many  cases,  rare 
plants,  shrubs,  and  flowers.  Public  picture  galleries,  and  even  li- 
braries, are  intellectual  luxuries  ;  and  though  we  must  and  will  have 
them,  as  wealth  accumulates,  yet  I  look  upon  public  parks  and  gar- 
dens, which  are  great  social  enjoyments,  as  naturally  coming  first. 
Man's  social  nature  stands  before  his  intellectual  one  in  the  order  of 
cultivation. 

Ed.  But  these  great  public  parks  are  mostly  the  appendages 
of  royalty,  and  have  been  created  for  purposes  of  show  and  magni- 
ficence, quite  incompatible  with  our  ideas  of  republican  simplicity. 

Trav.  Not  at  all.  In  many  places  these  parks  were  made  for 
royal  enjoyment ;  but,  even  in  these  days,  they  are,  on  the  continent,  no 
longer  held  for  royal  use,  but  are  the  pleasure-grounds  of  the  public 
generally.  Look,  for  example,  at  the  Garden  of  the  Tuileries — spa- 
cious, full  of  flowers,  green  lawns,  orange-trees,  and  rare  plants,  in 
the  very  heart  of  Paris,  and  all  open  to  the  public,  without  charge. 
Even  in  third-rate  towns,  like  the  Hague,  there  is  a  royal  park  of 
two  hundred  acres,  filled  with  superb  trees,  rich  turf,  and  broad 
pieces  of  water — the  whole  exquisitely  kept,  and  absolutely  and  en- 
tirely at  the  enjoyment  of  every  well-disposed  person  that  chooses 
to  enter. 

Ed.  Still,  these  are  not  parks  or  gardens  made  for  the  public ; 
but  are  the  result,  originally,  of  princely  taste,  and  afterwards  given 
up  to  the  public. 

Trav.  But  Germany,  which  is  in  many  respects  a  most  instruc- 
tive country  to  Americans,  affords  many  examples  of  public  gar- 
dens, in  the  neighborhood  of  the  principal  towns,  of  extraordinary 
size  and  beauty,  originally  made  and  laid  out  solely  for  the  general 
use.    The  public  garden  at  Munich,  for  example,  contains  above  five 


A  TALK  ABOUT  PUBLIC  PARKS  AND  GARDENS. 


141 


"hundred  acres,  originally  laid  out  by  the  celebrated  Count  Bumford, 
with  five  miles  of  roads  and  walks,  and  a  collection  of  all  the  trees 
and  shrubs  that  will  thrive  in  that  country.    It  combines  the  beauty 
of  a  park  and  a  garden. 
M.    And  Frankfort  ? 

Trav.  Yes,  I  was  coming  to  that,  for  it  is  quite  a  model  of  this 
kind  of  civilization.  The  public  garden  of  Frankfort  is,  to  my  mind, 
one  of  the  most  delightful  sights  in  the  world.  Frankfort  deserves, 
indeed,  in  this  respect,  to  be  called  a  "  free  town ; "  for  I  doubt  if  we 
are  yet  ready  to  evince  the  same  capacity  for  self-government  and 
non-imposition  of  restraint  as  is  shown  daily  by  the  good  citizens 
of  that  place,  in  the  enjoyment  of  this  beautiful  public  garden. 
Think  of  a  broad  belt,  about  two  miles  long,  surrounding  the  city 
on  all  sides  but  one  (being  built  upon  the  site  of  the  old  ramparts), 
converted  into  the  most  lovely  pleasure-grounds,  intersected  with  all 
manner  of  shady  walks  and  picturesque  glades,  planted  not  only 
with  all  manner  of  fine  trees  and  shrubs,  but  beds  of  the  choicest 
flowers,  roses,  carnations,  dahlias,  verbenas,  tuberoses,  violets,  &c,  &c. 

Ed.  And  well  guarded,  I  suppose,  by  gen-cParmcs,  or  the  po- 
lice ! 

Trav.  By  no  means.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  open  to  every 
man,  woman,  and  child  in  the  city ;  there  are  even  no  gates  at  the 
various  entrances.  Only  at  these  entrances  are  put  up  notices, 
stating  that  as  the  garden  was  made  for  the  public,  and  is  kept  up 
at  its  expense,  the  town  authorities  commit  it  to  the  protection  of  all 
good  citizens.  Fifty  thousand  souls  have  the  right  to  enter  and  en- 
joy these  beautiful  grounds ;  and  yet,  though  they  are  most  tho- 
roughly enjoyed,  you  will  no  more  see  a  bed  trampled  upon,  or  a 
tree  injured,  than  in  your  own  private  garden  here  at  home  ! 

Ed.  There  is  truly  a  democracy  in  that,  worth  imitating  in  our 
more  professedly  democratic  country. 

Trav.  Well,  out  of  this  common  enjoyment  of  public  grounds, 
by  al]  classes,  grows  also  a  social  freedom,  and  an  easy  and  agreea- 
ble intercourse  of  all  classes,  that  strikes  an  American  with  surprise 
and  delight.  Every  afternoon,  in  the  public  grounds  of  the  German 
towns,  you  will  meet  thousands  of  neatly-dressed  men,  women,  and 
children.    All  classes  assemble  under  the  shade  of  the  same  trees, 


142  LANDSCAPE  GARDENING. 

— the  nobility  (even  the  king  is  often  seen  among  them),  the 
wealthy  citizens,  the  shopkeepers,  and  the  artisans,  &c.  There  they  all 
meet,  sip  their  tea  and  coffee,  ices,  or  other  refreshments,  from  tables 
in  the  open  air,  talk,  walk  about,  and  listen  to  bands  of  admirable 
music,  stationed  here  and  there  throughout  the  park.  In  short,  these 
great  public  grounds  are  the  pleasant  drawing-rooms  of  the  whole 
population ;  where  they  gain  health,  good  spirits,  social  enjoyment, 
and  a  frank  and  cordial  bearing  towards  their  neighbors,  that  is 
totally  unknown  either  in  England  or  America. 

Ed.  There  appears  a  disinclination  in  the  Anglo-Saxon  race  to 
any  large  social  intercourse,  or  unrestrained  public  enjoyment. 

Trav.  It  is  not  difficult  to  account  for  such  a  feeling  in  Eng- 
land. But  in  this  country,  it  is  quite  unworthy  of  us  and  our  insti- 
tutions. With  large  professions  of  equality,  I  find  my  countrymen 
more  and  more  inclined  to  raise  up  barriers  of  class,  wealth,  and 
fashion,  which  are  almost  as  strong  in  our  social  usages,  as  the  law 
of  caste  is  in  England.  It  is  quite  unworthy  of  us,  as  it  is  the 
meanest  and  most  contemptible  part  of  aristocracy  ;  and  we  owe  it 
to  ourselves  and  our  republican  professions,  to  set  about  establishing 
a  larger  and  more  fraternal  spirit  in  our  social  life. 

Ed.    Pray,  how  would  you  set  about  it  ? 

Trav.  Mainly  by  establishing  refined  public  places  of  resort, 
parks  and  gardens,  galleries,  libraries,  museums,  &c.  By  these 
means,  you  would  soften  and  humanize  the  rude,  educate  and  en- 
lighten the  ignorant,  and  give  continual  enjoyment  to  the  educated. 
Nothing  tends  to  beat  down  those  artificial  barriers,  that  false  pride, 
which  is  the  besetting  folly  of  our  Anglo-Saxon  nature,  so  much  as 
a  community  of  rational  enjoyments.  Now  there  is  absolutely  no 
class  of  persons  in  this  country  whose  means  allow  them  the  luxury 
of  great  parks,  or  fine  concerts  of  instrumental  music  within  their 
own  houses.  But  a  trifling  yearly  contribution  from  all  the  inhab- 
itants of  even  a  small  town,  will  enable  all  those  inhabitants  to  have 
an  excellent  band,  performing  every  fair  afternoon  through  the 
whole  summer.  Make  the  public  parks  or  pleasure-grounds  attrac- 
tive by  their  lawns,  fine  trees,  shady  walks,  and  beautiful  shrubs  and 
flowers,  by  fine  music,  and  the  certainty  of  "  meeting  every  body," 
and  you  draw  the  whole  moving  population  of  the  town  there  daily. 

Ed.    I  am  afraid  the  natural  gene  of  our  people  would  keep 


A  TALK  ABOUT  PUBLIC  PARKS  AND  GARDENS. 


143 


many  of  those  at  home  who  would  most  enjoy  such  places,  and  that 
they  would  be  given  up  to  those  who  would  abuse  the  privilege  and 
despoil  the  grounds.  Do  you  think  it  would  be  possible,  for  instance, 
to  preserve  fine  flowers  in  such  a  place,  as  in  Germany  ? 

Trav.  I  have  not  the  slightest  doubt  of  it.  How  can  I  have, 
after  going  on  board  such  magnificent  steamboats  as  the  Isaac  New- 
ton or  the  Bay  State,  all  fitted  up  with  the  same  luxury  of  velvet 
ottomans,  rich  caipets,  mirrors,  and  the  costliest  furniture,  that  I 
have  found  in  palaces  abroad,  and  all  at  the  use  of  millions  of  every 
class  of  American  travellers,  from  the  chimney-sweep  to  the  Presi- 
dent, and  yet  this  profuse  luxury  not  abused  in  the  slightest  manner ! 

Ed.  But  the  more  educated  of  our  people — would  they,  think 
you,  resort  to  public  pleasure-grounds  daily,  for  amusement  ?  Would 
not  the  natural  exclusiveness  of  our  better-halves,  for  instance,  taboo 
this  medley  of  "  all  sorts  of  people  that  we  don't  know  ? " 

Trav.  I  trust  too  much  in  the  good  sense  of  our  women  to  be- 
lieve it.  Indeed,  I  find  plenty  of  reasons  for  believing  quite  the  op- 
posite. I  see  the  public  watering-places  filled  with  all  classes  of  so- 
ciety, partaking  of  the  same  pleasures,  with  as  much  zest  as  in  any 
part  of  the  worjd ;  and  you  must  remember  that  there  is  no  forced 
intercourse  in  the  daily  reunions  in  a  public  garden  or  park.  There 
is  room  and  space  enough  for  pleasant  little  groups  or  circles  of  all 
tastes  and  sizes,  and  no  one  is  necessarily  brought  into  contact  with 
uncongenial  spirits  ;  while  the  daily  meeting  of  families,  who  ought 
to  sympathize,  from  natural  congeniality,  will  be  more  likely  to  bring 
them  together  than  any  other  social  gatherings.  Then  the  advantage 
to  our  fair  countrywomen  in  health  and  spirits,  of  exercise  in  the 
pure  open  air,  amid  the  groups  of  fresh  foliage  and  flowers,  in  a 
chat  with  friends,  and  pleasures  shared  with  them,  as  compared  with 
a  listless  lounge  upon  a  sofa  at  home,  over  the  last  new  novel  or 
pattern  of  embroidery !  When  I  first  returned  home,  I  assure  you, 
I  was  almost  shocked  at  the  extreme  delicacy,  and  apparent  univer- 
sal want  of  health  in  my  countrywomen,  as  compared  with  the  same 
classes  abroad.  It  is,  most  clearly,  owing  to  the  many  sedentary, 
listless  hours  which  they  pass  within  doors ;  no  out-of-dcor  occupa- 
tions— walking  considered  irksome  and  fatiguing — and  almost  no 
parks,  pleasure-grounds,  or  shaded  avenues,  to  tempt  fair  pedestrians 
to  this  most  heal  Mul  and  natural  exercise. 


144 


LANDSCAPE  GARDENING. 


Ed.  Enough.  I  am  fully  satisfied  of  the  benefits  of  these 
places  of  healthful  public  enjoyment,  and  of  their  being  most  com- 
pletely adapted  to  our  institutions.  But  how  to  achieve  them? 
What  do  we  find  among  us  to  warrant  a  belief  that  public  parks, 
for  instance,  are  within  the  means  of  our  people  ? 

Trav.  Several  things :  but  most  of  all,  the  condition  of  our 
public  cemeteries  at  the  present  moment.  Why,  twenty  years  ago, 
such  a  thing  as  an  embellished,  rural  cemetery,  was  unheard  of  in 
the  United  States  ;  and,  at  the  present  moment,  we  surpass  all  other 
nations  in  these  beautiful  resting-places  for  the  dead.  Greenwood, 
Mount  Auburn,  and  Laurel  Hill,  are  as  much  superior  to  the  far- 
famed  P£re  la  Chaise  of  Paris,  in  natural  beauty,  tasteful  arrange- 
ment, and  all  that  constitutes  the  charm  of  such  a  spot,  as  St.  Peter's 
is  to  the  Boston  State  House.  Indeed,  these  cemeteries  are  the 
only  places  in  the  country  that  can  give  an  untravelled  American 
any  idea  of  the  beauty  of  many  of  the  public  parks  and  gardens 
abroad.  Judging  from  the  crowds  of  people  in  carriages,  and  on 
foot,  which  I  find  constantly  thronging  Greenwood  and  Mount  Au- 
burn, I  think  it  is  plain  enough  how  much  our  citizens,  of  all  classes, 
would  enjoy  public  parks  on  a  similar  scale.  Indeed,  the  only  draw- 
back to  these  beautiful  and  highly  kept  cemeteries,  to  my  taste,  is 
the  gala-day  air  of  recreation  they  present.  People  seem  to  go  there 
to  enjoy  themselves,  and  not  to  indulge  in  any  serious  recollections 
or  regrets.  Can  you  doubt  that  if  our  large  towns  had  suburban 
pleasure-grounds,  like  Greenwood  (excepting  the  monuments),  where 
the  best  music  could  be  heard  daily,  they  would  become  the  con- 
stant resort  of  the  citizens,  or  that  being  so,  they  would  tend  to  soften 
and  allay  some  of  the  feverish  unrest  of  business  which  seems  to 
have  possession  of  most  Americans,  body  and  soul  ? 

Ed.  But  the  modus  operandi  ?  Cemeteries  are,  in  a  measure, 
private  speculations ;  hundreds  are  induced  to  buy  lots  in  them  from 
fashion  or  personal  pride,  besides  those  whose  hearts  are  touched  by 
the  beauiful  sentiment  which  they  involve ;  and  thus  a  large  fund 
is  produced,  which  maintains  every  thing  in  the  most  perfect  order. 

Trav.  Appeal  to  the  public  liberality.  We  subscribe  hundreds 
of  thousands  of  dollars  to  give  food  to  the  Irish,  or  to  assist  the 
needy  inhabitants  of  a  burnt-out  city,  or  to  send  missionaries  to 
South  Sea  Islands.    Are  there  no  dollars  in  the  same  generous 


A  TALK  ABOUT  PUBLIC  PARKS  AND  GARDEN'S. 


145 


pockets  for  a  public  park,  which  shall  be  the  great  wholesome 
breathing  zone,  social  mass-meeting,  and  grand  out-of-door  concert- 
room  of  all  the  inhabitants  daily  1  Make  it  praiseworthy  and  laud- 
able for  wealthy  men  to  make  bequests  of  land,  properly  situated, 
for  this  public  enjoyment,  and  commemorate  the  public  spirit  of 
such  men  by  a  statue  or  a  beautiful  marble  vase,  with  an  inscription, 
telling  all  succeeding  generations  to  whom  they  are  indebted  for  the 
beauty  and  enjoyment  that  constitute  the  chief  attraction  of  the 
town.  Let  the  ladies  gather  money  from  young  and  old  by  fairs, 
and  "  tea  parties,"  to  aid  in  planting  and  embellishing  the  grounds. 
Nay,  I  would  have  life-members,  who  on  paying  a  certain  sum, 
should  be  the  owners  in  "  fee  simple  "  of  certain  fine  trees,  or  groups 
of  trees  ;  since  there  are  some  who  will  never  give  money  but  for 
some  tangible  and  visible  property. 

Ed.  It  is,  perhaps,  not  so  difficult  to  get  the  public  park  or  gar 
den,  as  to  meet  all  the  annual  expenses  required  to  keep  it  in  the  re- 
quisite condition. 

Trav.  There  is,  to  my  mind,  but  one  effectual  and  rational 
mode  of  doing  this — by  a  voluntary  taxation  on  the  part  of  all  the 
inhabitants.  A  few  shillings  each  person,  or  a  small  per  centage  on 
the  value  of  all  the  property  in  a  town,  would  keep  a  park  of  a 
hundred  or  two  acres  in  admirable  order,  and  defray  all  the  inciden- 
tal expenses.  Did  you  ever  make  a  calculation  of  the  sum  volun- 
tarily paid  in  towns  like  this,  of  nine  thousand  inhabitants,  for  pew 
rent  in  churches  and  places  of  worship  ? 

Ed.  No. 

Trav.  Very  well ;  I  have  had  the  curiosity  lately  to  do  so,  and 
find  that  in  a  town  of  nine  thousand  souls,  and  with  ten  "  meeting- 
houses "  of  various  sects,  more  than  ten  thousand  dollars  are  volun- 
tarily paid  every  year  for  the  privilege  of  sitting  in  these  churches. 
Does  it  appear  to  you  impossible  that  half  that  sum  (a  few  shillings 
a  year  each)  would  be  willingly  paid  every  year  for  the  privilege  of 
a  hundred  acres  of  beautiful  park  or  pleasure-grounds,  where  ever}' 
man,  woman,  and  child  in  the  community  could  have,  for  a  few 
shillings,  all  the  soft  verdure,  the  umbrageous  foliage,  the  lovely 
flowers,  the  place  for  exercise,  recreation,  repose,  that  Victoria  has  in 
her  Park  of  Windsor  ? 

10 


146 


LANDSCAPE  GARDENING. 


Ed.  Not  at  all,  if  our  countrymen  could  be  made  to  look  upon 
the  matter  in  the  same  light  as  yourself.  But  while  no  men  contri- 
bute money  so  -willingly  and  liberally  as  we  Americans  for  the  sup- 
port of  religion,  or  indeed  for  the  furtherance  of  any  object  of  moral 
good,  we  are  slow  to  understand  the  value  and  influence  of  beauty 
of  this  material  kind,  on  our  daily  lives. 

Trav.  But  we  must  believe  it,  because  the  Beautiful  is  no  less 
eternal  than  the  True  and  the  Good.  And  it  is  the  province  of  the 
press — of  writers  who  have  the  public  ear — to  help  those  to  see 
(who  are  slow  to  perceive  it),  how  much  these  outward  influences 
have  to  do  with  bettering  the  condition  of  a  people,  as  good  citizens, 
patriots,  men.  Nay,  more  ;  what  an  important  influence  these  pub- 
lic resorts,  of  a  rational  and  refined  eharacter,  must  exert  in  ele- 
vating the  national  character,  and  softening  the  many  little  jealousies 
of  social  life  by  a  community  of  enjoyments.  A  people  will  have 
its  pleasures,  as  certainly  as  its  religion  or  its  laws  ;  and  whether 
these  pleasures  are  poisonous  and  hmiful,  or  innocent  and  salutary, 
must  greatly  depend  on  the  interest  taken  in  them  by  the  directing 
minds  of  the  age.  Get  some  country  town  of  the  first  class  to  set 
the  example  by  making  a  public  park  or  garden  of  this  kind.  Let 
our  people  once  see  for  themselves  the  influence  for  good  which  it 
would  effect,  no  less  than  the  healthful  enjoyment  it  will  afford,  and 
I  feel  confident  that  the  taste  for  public  pleasure-grounds,  in  the 
United  States,  will  spread  as  rapidly  as  that  for  cemeteries  has  done. 
If  my  own  observation  of  the  effect  of  these  places  in  Germany  is 
worth  any  thing,  you  may  take  my  word  for  it  that  they  will  be 
better  preachers  of  temperance  than  temperance  societies,  better  re- 
finers of  national  manners  than  dancing-schools,  and  better  promot- 
ers of  general  good  feeling  than  any  lectures  on  the  philosophy  of 
happiness  ever  delivered  in  the  lecture-room.  In  short,  I  am  in 
earnest  about  the  matter,  and  must  therefore  talk,  write,  preach,  do 
all  I  can  about  it,  and  beg  the  assistance  of  all  those  who  have  pub- 
lic influence,  till  some  good  experiment  of  the  kind  is  fairly  tried  in 
this  country. 

Ed.  I  wish  you  all  success  in  your  good  undertaking  ;  and  will, 
at  least,  print  our  conversation  for  the  benefit  of  the  readers  of  the 
Horticulturist. 


VIII. 

THE  NEW-YORK  PARK. 

August,  1851. 

THE  leading  topic  of  town  gossip  and  newspaper  paragraphs  just 
now,  in  New- York,  is  the  new  park  proposed  by  Mayor  Kings- 
land.  Deluded  New- York  has,  until  lately,  contented  itself  with  the 
little  door-yards  of  space — mere  grass-plats  of  verdure,  which  form 
the  squares'  of  the  city,  in  the  mistaken  idea  that  they  are  parks. 
The  fourth  city  in  the  world  (with  a  growth  that  will  soon  make  it 
the  second),  the  commercial  metropolis  of  a  continent  spacious  enough 
to  border  both  oceans,  has  not  hitherto  been  able  to  afford  sufficient 
land  to  give  its  citizens  (the  majority  of  whom  live  there  the  whole 
year  round)  any  breathing  space  for  pure  air,  any  recreation  ground 
for  healthful  exercise,  any  pleasant  roads  for  riding  or  driving,  or  any 
enjoyment  of  that  lovely  and  refreshing  natural  beauty  from  which 
they  have,  in  leaving  the  country,  reluctantly  expatriated  themselves 
for  so  many  years — perhaps  for  ever.  Some  few  thousands,  more 
fortunate  than  the  rest,  are  able  to  escape  for  a  couple  of  months, 
into  the  country,  to  find  repose  for  body  and  soul,  in  its  leafy  groves 
and  pleasant  pastures,  or  to  inhale  new  life  on  the  refreshing  sea- 
shore. But  in  the  mean  time  the  city  is  always  full.  Its  steady 
population  of  five  hundred  thousand  souls  is  always  there ;  always 
on  the  increase.  Every  ship  brings  a  live  cargo  from  over-peopled 
Europe,  to  fill  up  its  over-crowded  lodging-houses ;  every  steamer 
brings  hundreds  of  strangers  to  fill  its  thronged  thoroughfares. 
Crowded  hotels,  crowded  streets,  hot  summers,  business  pursued  till 
it  becomes  a  game  of  excitement,  pleasure  followed  till  its  votaries 


148 


LANDSCAPE  GARDENING. 


are  exhausted,  where  is  the  quiet  reverse  side  of  this  picture  of  town 
life,  intensified  almost  to  distraction  ? 

Mayor  Kingsland  spreads  it  out  to  the  vision  of  the  dwellers  in 
this  arid  desert  of  business  and  dissipation — a  green  oasis  for  the  re- 
freshment of  the  city's  soul  and  body.  He  tells  the  citizens  of  that 
feverish  metropolis,  as  every  intelligent  man  will  tell  them  who  knows 
the  cities  of  the  old  world,  that  New-York,  and  American  cities 
generally,  are  voluntarily  and  ignorantly  living  in  a  state  of  com- 
plete forgetfulness  of  nature,  and  her  innocent  recreations.  That, 
because  it  is  needful  in  civilized  life  for  men  to  live  in  cities, — yes, 
and  unfortunately  too,  for  children  to  be  born  and  educated  without 
a  daily  sight  of.  the  blessed  horizon, — it  is  not,  therefore,  needful  for 
them  to  be  so  miserly  as  to  live  utterly  divorced  from  all  pleasant 
and  healthful  intercourse  with  gardens,  and  green  fields.  He  in- 
forms them  that  cool  umbrageous  groves  have  not  forsworn  them- 
selves within  town  limits,  and  that  half  a  million  of  people  have  a 
right  to  ask  for  the  "greatest  happiness"  of  parks  and  pleasure- 
grounds,  as  well  as  for  paving  stones  and  gas-lights. 

Now  that  public  opinion  has  fairly  settled  that  a  park  is  neces- 
sary, the  parsimonious  declare  that  the  plot  of  one  hundred  and 
sixty  acres  proposed  by  Mayor  Kingsland  is  extravagantly  large. 
Short-sighted  economists !  If  the  future  growth  of  the  city  were 
confined  to  the  boundaries  their  narrow  vision  would  fix,  it  would 
soon  cease  to  be  the  commercial  emporium  of  the  country.  If  they 
were  the  purveyors  of  the  young  giant,  he  would  soon  present  the 
sorry  spectacle  of  a  robust  youth  magnificently  developed,  but  whose 
extremities  had  outgrown  every  garment  that  they  had  provided  to 
cover  his  nakedness. 

These  timid  tax-payers,  and  men  nervous  in  their  private  pockets 
of  the  municipal  expenditures,  should  take  a  lesson  from  some  of 
their  number  to  whose  admirable  foresight  we  owe  the  unity  of  ma- 
terials displayed  in  the  New-York  City-Hall.  Every  one  familiar 
with  New- York,  has  wondered  or  smiled  at  the  apparent  perversity 
of  taste  which  gave  us  a  building — in  the  most  conspicuous  part  of 
the  city,  and  devoted  to  the  highest  municipal  uses,  three  sides  of 
which  are  pure  white  marble,  and  the  fourth  of  coarse,  brown  stone. 
But  few  of  those  who  see  that  incongruity,  know  that  it  was  dictated 


THE  NEW-YORK  PARK. 


149 


by  the  narrow-sighted  frugality  of  the  common  council  who  were 
its  building  committee,  and  who  determined  that  it  would  be  useless 
to  waste  marble  on  the  rear  of  the  City-Hall, "  since  that  side  would 
only  be  seen  by  persons  living  in  the  suburbs." 

Thanking  Mayor  Kingsland  most  heartily  for  his  proposed  new 
park,  the  only  objection  we  make  to  it  is  that  it  is  too  small.  One 
hundred  and  sixty  acres  of  park  for  a  city  that  will  soon  contain 
three-quarters  of  a  million  of  people !  It  is  only  a  child's  play- 
ground. Why  London  has  over  six  thousand  acres  either  within 
its  own  limits,  or  in  the  accessible  suburbs,  open  to  the  enjoyment 
of  its  population — and  six  thousand  acres  composed  too,  either  of 
the  grandest  and  most  lovely  park  scenery,  like  Kensington  and 
Richmond,  or  of  luxuriant  gardens,  filled  with  rare  plants,  hot-houses, 
and  hardy  shrubs  and  trees,  like  the  National  Garden  at  Kew. 
Paris  has  its  Garden  of  the  Tuileries,  whose  alleys  are  lined  with 
orange-trees  two  hundred  years  old,  whose  parterres  are  gay  with 
the  brightest  flowers,  whose  cool  groves  of  horse-chestnuts,  stretching 
out  to  the  Elysian  Fields,  are  in  the  very  midst  of  the  city.  Yes, 
and  on  its  outskirts  are  Versailles  (three  thousand  acres  of  imperial 
groves  and  gardens  there  also),  and  Fontainbleau,  and  St.  Cloud, 
with  all  the  rural,  scenic,  and  palatial  beauty  that  the  opulence  of 
the  most  profuse  of  French  monarchs  could  create,  all  open  to  the 
people  of  Paris.  Vienna  has  its  great  Prater,  to  make  which,  would 
swallow  up  most  of  the  "unimproved"  part  of  New- York  city. 
Munich  has  a  superb  pleasure-ground  of  five  hundred  acres,  which 
makes  the  Arcadia  of  her  citizens.  Even  the  smaller  towns  are  pro- 
vided with  public,  grounds  to  an  extent  that  would  beggar  the  imag- 
ination of  our  short-sighted  economists,  who  would  deny  "  a  green- 
ery" to  New- York;  Frankfort,  for  example,  is  skirted  by  the  most 
beautiful  gardens,  formed  upon  the  platform  which  made  the  old 
ramparts  of  the  city — gardens  filled  with  the  loveliest  plants  and 
shrubs,  tastefully  grouped  along  walks  over  two  miles  in  extent. 

Looking  at  the  present  government  of  the  city  as  about  to  pro- 
vide, in  the  People's  Park,  a  breathing  zone,  and  healthful  place  for 
exercise  for  a  city  of  half  a  million  of  souls,  we  trust  they  will  not 
be  content  with  the  limited  number  of  acres  already  proposed. 
Five  hundred  acres  is  the  smallest  area  that  should  be  reserved  for 


150 


LANDSCAPE  GARDENING. 


the  future  wants  of  such  a  city,  now,  while  it  may  be  obtained. 
Five  hundred  acres  may  be  selected  between  Thirty-ninth-street  and 
tbe  Harlem  River,  including  a  varied  surface  of  land,  a  good  deal  of 
which  is  yet  waste  area,  so  that  the  whole  may  be  purchased  at 
something  like  a  million  of  dollars.  In  that  area  there  would  be 
space  enough  to  have  broad  reaches  of  park  and  pleasure-grounds, 
witb  a  real  feeling  of  the  breadth  and  beauty  of  green  fields,  the 
perfume  and  freshness  of  nature.  In  its  midst  would  be  located  the 
great  distributing  reservoirs  of  the  Croton  aqueduct,  formed  into 
lovely  lakes  of  limpid  water,  covering  many  acres,  and  heightening 
the  charm  of  the  sylvan  accessories  by  the  finest  natural  contrast. 
In  such  a  park,  the  citizens  who  would  take  excursions  in  carriages 
or  on  horseback,  could  have  the  substantial  delights  of  country  roads 
and  country  scenery,  and  forget,  for  a  time  the  rattle  of  the  pave- 
ments and  the  glare  of  brick  walls.  Pedestrians  would  find  quiet 
and  secluded  walks  when  they  wished  to  be  solitary,  and  broad  alleys 
filled  with  thousands  of  happy  faces,  when  they  would  be  gay.  The 
thoughtful  denizen  of  the  town  would  go  out  there  in  the  morning, 
to  hold  converse  with  the  whispering  trees,  and  the  weary  tradesmen 
in  the  evening,  to  enjoy  an  hour  of  happiness  by  mingling  in  the 
open  space  with  "  all  the  world." 

The  many  beauties  and  utilities  that  would  gradually  grow  out 
of  a  great  park  like  this,  in  a  great  city  like  New- York,  suggest 
themselves  immediately  and  forcibly.  "Where  would  be  found  so 
fitting  a  position  for  noble  works  of  art,  the  statues,  monuments,  and 
buildings  commemorative  at  once  of  the  great  men  of  the  nation, 
of  the  history  of  the  age  and  country,  and  the  genius  of  our  high- 
est artists  ?  In  the  broad  area  of  such  a  verdant  zone  would  grad- 
ually grow  up,  as  the  wealth  of  the  city  increases,  winter  gardens 
of  glass,  like  the  great  Crystal  Palace,  where  the  whole  people 
could  luxuriate  in  groves  of  the  palms  and  spice  trees  of  the  tropics, 
at  the  same  moment  that  sleighing  parties  glided  swiftly  and  noise- 
lessly over  the  snow-covered  surface  of  the  country-like  avenues 
of  the  wintry  park  without.  Zoological  Gardens,  like  those  of  Lon- 
don and  Paris,  would  gradually  be  formed  by  private  subscription 
or  public  funds,  where  thousands  of  old  and  young  would  find  daily 
pleasure  in  studying  natural  history,  illustrated  by  all  the  wildest 


THE  NEW-YORK  PARK. 


151 


and  strangest  animals  of  the  globe,  almost  as  much  at  home  in  their 
paddocks  and  jungles,  as  if  in  their  native  forests ;  and  Horticultu- 
ral and  Industrial  Societies  would  hold  their  annual  shows  there, 
and  great  expositions  of  the  arts  would  take  place  in  spacious  build- 
ings within  the  park,  far  more  fittingly  than  in  the  noise  and  din  of 
the  crowded  streets  of  the  city. 

We  have  said  nothing  of  the  social  influence  of  such  a  great 
park  in  New- York.  But  this  is  really  the  most  interesting  phase  of 
the  whole  matter.  It  is  a  fact  not  a  little  remarkable,  that,  ultra 
democratic  as  are  the  political  tendencies  of  America,  its  most  in- 
telligent social  tendencies  are  almost  wholly  in  a  contrary  direction. 
And  among  the  topics  discussed  by  the  advocates  and  opponents  of 
the  new  park,  none  seem  so  poorly  understood  as  the  social  aspect 
of  the  thing.  It  is,  indeed,  both  curious  and  amusing  to  see  the 
stand  taken  on  the  one  hand  by  the  million,  that  the  park  is  made 
for  the  "upper  ten,"  who  ride  in  fine  carriages,  and,  on  the  other 
hand,  by  the  wealthy  and  refined,  that  a  park  in  this  country  will 
be  "usurped  by  rowdies  and  low  people."  Shame  upon  our  repub- 
lican compatriots  who  so  little  understand  the  elevating  influences 
of  the  beautiful  in  nature  and  in  art,  when  enjoyed  in  common  by 
thousands  and  hundreds  of  thousands  of  all  classes  without  distinc- 
tion !  They  can  never  have  seen,  how  all  over  France  and  Germa- 
ny, the  whole  population  of  the  cities  pass  then  afternoons  and 
evenings  together,  in  the  beautiful  public  parks  and  gardens.  How 
they  enjoy  together  the  same  music,  breathe  the  same  atmosphere 
of  art,  enjoy  the  same  scenery,  and  grow  into  social  freedom  by  the 
very  influences  of  easy  intercourse,  space  and  beauty  that  surround 
them.  In  Germany,  especially,  they  have  never  seen  how  the  high- 
est and  the  lowest  partake  alike  of  the  common  enjoyment — the 
prince  seated  beneath  the  trees  on  a  rush-bottomed  chair,  before  a 
little  wooden  table,  supping  his  coffee  or  his  ice,  with  the  same  free- 
dom from  state  and  pretension  as  the  simplest  subject.  Drawing- 
room  conventionalities  are  too  narrow  for  a  mile  or  two  of  spacious 
garden  landscape,  and  one  can  be  happy  with  ten  thousand  in  the 
social  freedom  of  a  community  of  genial  influences,  without  the 
unutterable  pang  of  not  having  been  introduced  to  the  company 
present. 


152 


LANDSCAPE  GARDENING. 


These  social  doubters  who  thus  intrench  themselves  in  the  sole 
citadel  of  exclusiveness  in  republican  America,  mistake  our  people 
and  their  destiny.  If  we  would  but  have  listened  to  them,  our  mag- 
nificent river  and  lake  steamers,  those  real  palaces  of  the  million, 
would  have  had  no  velvet  couches,  no  splendid  mirrors,  no  luxurious 
carpets.  Such  costly  and  rare  appliances  of  civilization,  they  would 
have  told  us,  could  only  be  rightly  used  by  the  privileged  families 
of  wealth,  and  would  be  trampled  upon  and  utterly  ruined  by  the 
democracy  of  the  country,  who  travel  one  hundred  miles  for  half  a 
dollar.  And  yet  these,  our  floating  palaces  and  our  monster  hotels, 
with  their  purple  and  fine  linen,  are  they  not  respected  by  the  ma- 
jority who  use  them,  as  truly  as  other  palaces  by  their  rightful  sov- 
ereigns ?  Alas,  for  the  faithlessness  of  the  few,  who  possess,  regarding 
the  capacity  for  culture  of  the  many,  who  are  wanting.  Even  upon 
the  lower  platform  of  liberty  and  education  that  the  masses  stand 
in  Europe,  we  see  the  elevating  influences  of  a  wide  popular  enjoy- 
ment of  galleries  of  art,  public  libraries,  parks  and  gardens,  which 
have  raised  the  people  in  social  civilization  and  social  culture  to  a 
far  higher  level  than  we  have  yet  attained  in  republican  America. 
And  yet  this  broad  ground  of  popular  refinement  must  be  taken  in 
republican  America,  for  it  belongs  of  right  more  truly  here,  than 
elsewhere.  It  is  republican  in  its  very  idea  and  tendency.  It  takes 
up  popular  education  where  the  common  school  and  ballot-box  leave 
it,  and  raises  up  the  working-man  to  the  same  level  of  enjoyment 
with  the  man  of  leisure  and  accomplishment.  The  higher  social 
and  artistic  elements  of  every  man's  nature  lie  dormant  within  him, 
and  every  laborer  is  a  possible  gentleman,  not  by  the  possession  of 
money  or  fine  clothes — but  through  the  refining  influence  of  intel- 
lectual and  moral  culture.  Open  wide,  therefore,  the  doors  of  your 
libraries  and  picture  galleries,  all  ye  true  republicans  !  Build  halls 
where  knowledge  shall  be  freely  diffused  among  men,  and  not  shut  up 
within  the  narrow  walls  of  narrower  institutions.  Plant  spacious 
parks  in  your  cities,  and  unloose  their  gates  as  wide  as  the  gates  of 
morning  to  the  whole  people.  As  there  are  no  dark  places  at  noon 
day,  so  education  and  culture — the  true  sunshine  of  the  soul — will 
banish  the  plague  spots  of  democracy ;  and  the  dread  of  the  igno- 
rant exclusive  who  has  no  faith  in  the  refinement  of  a  republic,  will 


THE  NEW-YORK  PARK. 


153 


stand  abashed  in  the  next  century,  before  a  whole  people  whose  sys- 
tem of  voluntary  education  embraces  (combined  with  perfect  indi- 
vidual freedom),  not  only  common  schools  of  rudimentary  know- 
ledge, but  common  enjoyments  for  all  classes  in  the  higher  realms 
of  art,  letters,  science,  social  recreations,  and  enjoyments.  Were 
our  legislators  but  wise  enough  to  understand,  to-day,  the  destinies 
of  the  New  .  World,  the  gentility  of  Sir  Philip  Sidney,  made  univer- 
sal, would  be  not  half  so  much  a  miracle  fifty  years  hence  in  Amer- 
ica, as  the  idea  of  a  whole  nation  of  laboring-men  reading  and 
wiiting,  was,  in  his  day,  in  England. 


\ 


IX. 

PUBLIC  CEMETERIES  AND  PUBLIC  GARDENS. 

July,  1849. 

ONE  of  the  most  remarkable  illustrations  of  the  popular  taste,  in 
this  country,  is  to  be  found  in  the  rise  and  progress  of  our  rural 
cemeteries. 

Twenty  years  ago,  nothing  better  than  a  common  grave-yard, 
filled  with  high  grass,  and  a  chance  sprinkling  of  weeds  and  thistles, 
was  to  be  found  in  the  Union.  If  there  were  one  or  two  exceptions, 
like  the  burial  ground  at  New  Haven,  where  a  few  willow  trees 
broke  the  monotony  of  the  scene,  they  existed  only  to  prove  the  rule 
more  completely. 

Eighteen  years  ago,  Mount  Auburn,  about  six  miles  from  Boston, 
was  made  a  rural  cemetery.  It  was  then  a  charming  natural  site, 
finely  varied  in  surface,  containing  about  80  acres  of  land,  and  ad- 
mirably clothed  by  groups  and  masses  of  native  forest  trees.  It  was 
tastefully  laid  out,  monuments  were  built,  and  the  whole  highly  em- 
bellished. No  sooner  was  attention  generally  roused  to  the  charms 
of  this  first  American  cemetery,  than  the  idea  took  the  public  mind 
by  storm.  Travellers  made  pilgrimages  to  the  Athens  of  New  Eng- 
land, solely  to  see  the  realization  of  their  long  cherished  dream  of  a 
resting-place  for  the  dead,  at  once  sacred  from  profanation,  dear  to 
the  memory,  and  captivating  to  the  imagination. 

Not  twenty  years  have  passed  since  that  time ;  and,  at  the  pres- 
ent moment,  there  is  scarcely  a  city  of  note  in  the  whole  country 
that  has  not  its  rural  cemetery.  The  three  leading  cities  of  the 
north,  New-York,  Philadelphia,  Boston,  have,  each  of  them,  besides 


PUBLIC  CEMETERIES  AND  PUBLIC  GARDENS.  155 


their  great  cemeteries, — Greenwood,  Laurel  Hill,  Mount  Auburn, — 
many  others  of  less  note  ;  but  any  of  which  would  have  astonished 
and  delighted  their  inhabitants  twenty  years  ago.  Philadelphia  has, 
we  learn,  nearly  twenty  rural  cemeteries  at  the  present  moment, — 
several  of  them  belonging  to  distinct  societies,  sects  or  associations, 
while  others  are  open  to  all.* 

The  great  attraction  of  these  cemeteries,  to  the  mass  of  the  com- 
munity, is  not  in  the  fact  that  they  are  burial-places,  or  solemn  places 
of  meditation  for  the  friends  of  the  deceased,  or  striking  exhibitions 
of  monumental  sculpture,  though  all  these  have  their  influence.  All 
these  might  be  realized  in  a  burial-ground,  planted  with  straight 
lines  of  willows,  and  sombre  avenues  of  evergreens.  The  true  secret 
of  the  attraction  lies  in  the  natural  beauty  of  the  sites,  and  in  the 
tasteful  and  harmonious  embellishment  of  these  sites  by  art.  Nearly 
all  these  cemeteries  were  rich  portions  of  forest  land,  broken  by  hill 
and  dale,  and  varied  by  copses  and  glades,  like  Mount  Auburn  and 
Greenwood,  or  old  country-seats,  richly  wooded  with  fine  planted 
trees,  like  Laurel  Hill.1  Hence,  to  an  inhabitant  of  the  town,  a  visit 
to  one  of  these  spots  has  the  united  charm  of  nature  and  art, — the 
double  wealth  of  rural  and  moral  associations.  It  awakens  at  the 
same  moment,  the  feeling  of  human  sympathy  and  the  love  of  nat- 
ural beauty,  implanted  in  every  heart.  His  must  be  a  dull  or  a 
trifling  soul  that  neither  swells  with  emotion,  or  rises  with  admira- 
tion, at  the  varied  beauty  of  these  lovely  and  hallowed  spots. 

Indeed,  in  the  absence  of  great  public  gardens,  such  as  we  must 
surely  one  day  have  in  America,  our  rural  cemeteries  are  doing  a 
great  deal  to  enlarge  and  educate  the  popular  taste  in  rural  embel- 
lishment. They  are  for  the  most  part  laid  out  with  admirable  taste ; 
they  contain  the  greatest  variety  of  trees  and  shrubs  to  be  found  in 
the  country,  and  several  of  them  are  kept  in  a  manner  seldom  equal- 
led in  private  places,  f 

*  "We  made  a  rough  calculation  from  some  data  obtained  at  Philadelphia 
lately,  by  which  we  find  that,  including  the  cost  of  the  lots,  more  than  a 
million  and  a  half  of  dollars  have  been  expended  in  the  purchase  and  decora- 
tion of  cemeteries  in  that  neighborhood  alone. 

\  Laurel  Hill  is  especially  rich  in  rare  trees.  We  saw,  last  month,  almost 
every  procurable  species  of  hardy  tree  and  shrub  growing  there, — among 


156 


LANDSCAPE  GARDENING. 


The  character  of  each  of  the  three  great  cemeteries  is  essentially 
distinct.  Greenwood,  the  largest,  and  unquestionably  the  finest,  is 
grand,  dignified,  and  park-like.  It  is  laid  out  in  a  broad  and  simple 
style,  commands  noble  ocean  views,  and  is  admirably  kept.  Mount 
Auburn  is  richly  picturesque,  in  its  varied  hill  and  dale,  and  owes 
its  charm  mainly  to  this  variety  and  intricacy  of  sylvan  features. 
Laurel  Hill  is  a  charming  pleasure-ground,  filled  with  beautiful  and 
rare  shrubs  and  flowers ;  at  this  season,  a  wilderness  of  roses,  as  well 
as  fine  trees  and  monuments.* 

To  enable  the  reader  to  form  a  correct  idea  of  the  influence 

others,  the  Cedar  of  Lebanon,  the  Deodar  Cedar,  the  Paulownia,  the  Arau- 
caria,  etc.  Khododendrons  and  Azaleas  were  in  full  bloom ;  and  the  purple 
Beeches,  the  weeping  Ash,  rare  Junipers,  Pines,  and  deciduous  trees  were 
abundant  in  many  parts  of  the  grounds.  Twenty  acres  of  new  ground  have 
just  been  added  to  this  cemetery.  It  is  a  better  arboretum  than  can  easily 
be  found  elsewhere  in  the  country. 

*  Few  things  are  perfect ;  and  beautiful  and  interesting  as  our  rural 
cemeteries  now  are, — more  beautiful  and  interesting  than  any  thing  of  the 
same  kind  abroad,  we  cannot  pass  by  one  feature  in  all,  marked  by  the  most 
violent  bad  taste ;  we  mean  the  hideous  ironmongery,  which  they  all  more 
or  less  display.  Why,  if  the  separate  lots  must  be  inclosed  with  iron  rail- 
ings, the  railings  should  not  be  of  simple  and  unobtrusive  patterns,  we  are 
wholly  unable  to  conceive.  As  we  now  see  them,  by  far  the  greater  part 
are  so  ugly  as  to  be  positive  blots  on  the  beauty  of  the  scene.  Fantastic 
conceits  and  gimcracks  in  iron  might  be  pardonable  as  adornments  of  the 
balustrade  of  a  circus  or  a  temple  of  Comus ;  but  how  reasonable  beings  can 
tolerate  them  as  inclosures  to  the  qiiiet  grave  of  a  family,  and  in  such  scenes 
of  sylvan  beauty,  is  mountain  high  above  our  comprehension. 

But  this  is  not  all ;  as  if  to  show  how  far  human  infirmity  can  go,  we 
noticed  lately  several  lots  in  one  of  these  cemeteries,  not  only  inclosed  with 
a  most  barbarous  piece  of  irony,  but  the  gate  of  which  was  positively  orna- 
mented with  the  coat  of  arms  of  the  owner,  accompanied  by  a  brass  door- 
plate,  on  which  was  engraved  the  owner's  name,  and  city  residence !  All 
the  world  has  amused  itself  with  the  epitaph  on  a  tombstone  in  Pere  la 
Chaise,  erected  by  a  wife  to  her  husband's  memory ;  in  which,  after  recapit- 
ulating the  many  virtues  of  the  departed,  the  bereaved  one  concludes  with 
— "  his  disconsolate  widow  still  continues  the  business,  No.  — ,  Rose-street, 
Paris."  We  really  have  some  doubts  if  the  disconsolate  widow's  epitaph 
advertisement  is  not  in  better  taste  than  the  cemetery  brass  doorplate  im- 
mortality of  our  friends  at  home. 


PUBLIC  CEMETERIES  AND  PUBLIC  GARDENS. 


151 


which  these  beautiful  cemeteries  constantly  exercise  on  the  public 
mind,  it  is  only  necessary  to  refer  to  the  rapidity  with  which  they 
have  increased  in  fifteen  years,  as  we  have  just  remarked.  To  en- 
able them  to  judge  how  largely  they  arouse  public  curiosity,  we  may 
mention  that  at  Laurel  Hill,  four  miles  from  Philadelphia,  an  ac- 
count was  kept  of  the  number  of  visitors  during  last  season ;  and  the 
sum  totalj  as  we  were  told  by  one  of  the  directors,  was  nearly  30,000 
persons,  who  entered  the  gates  between  April  and  December,  1848. 
Judging  only  from  occasional  observations,  we  should  imagine  that 
double  that  number  visit  Greenwood,  and  certainly  an  equal  num- 
ber, Mount  Auburn,  in  a  season. 

We  have  already  remarked,  that,  in  the  absence  of  public  gar- 
dens, rural  cemeteries,  in  a  certain  degree,  supplied  their  place.  But 
does  not  this  general  interest,  manifested  in  these  cemeteries,  prove 
that  public  gardens,  established  in  a  liberal  and  suitable  manner, 
near  our  large  cities,  would  be  equally  successful  ?  If  30,000  per- 
sons visit  a  cemetery  in  a  single  season,  would  not  a  large  public 
garden  be  equally  a  matter  of  curious  investigation  ?  Would  not 
such  gardens  educate  the  public  taste  more  rapidly  than  any  thing 
else  ?  And  would  not  the  progress  of  horticulture,  as  a  science  and 
an  art,  be  equally  benefited  by  such  establishments  ?  The  passion 
for  rural  pleasures  is  destined  to  be  the  predominant  passion  of  all 
the  more  thoughtful  and  educated  portion  of  our  people ;  and  any 
means  of  gratifying  their  love  for  ornamental  or  useful  gardening, 
will  be  eagerly  seized  by  hundreds  of  thousands  of  our  countrymen. 

Let  us  suppose  a  joint-stock  company,  formed  in  any  of  our 
cities,  for  the  purpose  of  providing  its  inhabitants  with  the  luxury 
of  a  public  garden.  A  site  should  be  selected  with  the  same  judg- 
ment which  has  already  been  shown  by  the  cemetery  companies. 
It  should  have  a  varied  surface,  a  good  position,  sufficient  natural 
wood,  with  open  snace  and  good  soil  enough  for  the  arrangement 
of  all  those  portions  which  require  to  be  newly  planted. 

Such  a  garden  might,  in  the  space  of  fifty  to  one  hundred  acres, 
afford  an  example  of  the  principal  modes  of  laying  out  grounds, — 
thus  teaching  practical  landscape-gardening.  It  might  contain  a 
collection  of  all  the  hardy  trees  and  shrubs  that  grow  in  this  cli- 
mate, each  distinctly  labelled, — so  that  the  most  ignorant  visitor 


158 


LANDSCAPE  GARDENING. 


could  not  fail  to  learn  something  of  trees.  It  might  have  a  botani- 
cal arrangement  of  plants,  and  a  lecture-room  where,  at  the  proper 
season,  lectures  on  botany  could  be  delivered,  and  the  classes  which 
should  resort  there  could  study  with  the  growing  plants  under  their 
eyes.  It  might  be  laid  out  so  as,  in  its  wooded  position,  to  afford  a 
magnificent  drive  for  those  who  chose  so  to  enjoy  it ;  and  it  might  be 
furnished  with  suitable  ices  and  other  refreshments,  so  that,  like  the 
German  gardens,  it  would  be  the  great  promenade  of  all  strangers 
and  citizens,  visitors,  or  inhabitants  of  the  city  of  whose  suburbs  it 
would  form  a  part.  But  how  shall  such  an  establishment  be  sup- 
ported ?  Cemeteries  are  sustained  by  the  prices  paid  for  lots,  which, 
though  costing  not  a  large  sum  each,  make  an  enormous  sum  in 
the  aggregate. 

We  answer,  by  a  small  admission  fee.  Only  those  who  are 
shareholders  would  (like  those  owning  lots  in  a  cemetery)  have 
entrance  for  their  horses  and  carriages.  This  privilege  alone  would 
tempt  hundreds  to  subscribe,  thus  adding  to  the  capital,  while  the 
daily  resort  of  citizens  and  strangers  would  give  the  necessary  in- 
come ;  for  no  traveller  would  leave  a  city,  possessing  such  a  public 
garden  as  we  have  described,  without  seeing  that,  its  most  interest- 
ing feature.  The  finest  band  of  music,  the  most  rigid  police,  the 
certainty  of  an  agreeable  promenade  and  excellent  refreshments, 
would,  we  think,  as  surely  tempt  a  large  part  of  the  better  class  of 
the  inhabitants  of  our  cities  to  such  a  resort  here  as  in  Germany. 
If  the  road  to  Mount  Auburn  is  now  lined  with  coaches,  continu- 
ally carrying  the  inhabitants  of  Boston  by  thousands  and  tens  of 
thousands,  is  it  not  likely  that  such  a  garden,  full  of  the  most  varied 
instruction,  amusement,  and  recreation,  would  be  ten  times  more 
visited  ?  Fetes  might  be  held  there,  horticultural  societies  would 
make  annual  exhibitions  there,  and  it  would  be  the  general  holiday- 
ground  of  all  who  love  to  escape  from  the  brick  walls,  paved  streets, 
and  stifling  atmosphere  of  towns. 

"Would  such  a  project  pay  ?  This  is  the  home  question  of  all 
the  calculating  part  of  the  community,  who  must  open  their  purse- 
strings  to  make  it  a  substantial  reality. 

We  can  only  judge  by  analogy.  The  mere  yearly  rent  of  Bar 
num's  Museum  in  Broadway  is,  we  believe,  about  $10,000  (a  sum 


PUBLIC  CEMETERIES  AND  PUBLIC  GARDENS.  159 


more  than  sufficient  to  meet  all  the  annual  expenses  of  such  a  gar- 
den) ;  and  it  is  not  only  paid,  but  very  large  profits  have  been  made 
there.  Now,  if  hundreds  of  thousands  of  the  inhabitants  of  cities, 
like  New- York,  will  pay  to  see  stuffed  boa-constrictors  and  un-hu- 
man  Belgian  giants,  or  incur  the  expense  and  trouble  of  going  five  or 
six  miles  to  visit  Greenwood,  we  think  it  may  safely  be  estimated 
that  a  much  larger  number  would  resort  to  a  public  garden,  at  once 
the  finest  park,  the  most  charming  drive,  the  most  inviting  pleasure- 
ground,  and  the  most  agreeable  promenade  within  their  reach.  That 
such  a  project,  carefully  planned,  and  liberally  and  judiciously  car- 
ried out,  would  not  only  pay,  in  money,  but  largely  civilize  and 
refine  the  national  character,  foster  the  love  of  rural  beauty,  and  in- 
crease the  knowledge  of  and  taste  for  rare  and  beautiful  trees  and 
plants,  we  cannot  entertain  a  reasonable  doubt. 

It  is  only  necessary  for  one  of  the  three  cities  which  first  opened 
cemeteries,  to  set  the  example,  and  the  thing  once  fairly  seen,  it 
becomes  universal.  The  true  policy  of  republics,  is  to  foster  the 
taste  for  great  public  libraries,  sculpture  and  picture  galleries,  parks, 
and  gardens,  which  all  may  enjoy,  since  our  institutions  wisely 
forbid  the  growth  of  private  fortunes  sufficient  to  achieve  these  de- 
sirable results  in  any  other  way. 


HOW  TO  CHOOSE  A  SITE  FOR  A  COUNTRY-SEAT. 

December,  1847. 

HOW  to  choose  the  site  for  a  country  house,  is  a  subject  now 
occupying  the  thoughts  of  many  of  our  countrymen,  and 
therefore  is  not  undeserving  a  few  words  from  us  at  the  present 
moment. 

The  greater  part  of  those  who  build  country-seats  in  the  United 
States,  are  citizens  who  retire  from  the  active  pursuits  of  town  to  en- 
joy, in  the  most  rational  way  possible,  the  fortunes  accumulated 
there — that  is  to  say,  in  the  creation  of  beautiful  and  agreeable  rural 
homes. 

Whatever  may  be  the  natural  taste  of  this  class,  then  avoca- 
tions have  not  permitted  them  to  become  familiar  with  the  difficul- 
ties to  be  encountered  in  making  a  new  place,  or  the  most  successful 
way  of  accomplishing  all  that  they  propose  to  themselves.  Hence, 
we  not  unfrequently  see  a  very  complete  house  surrounded,  for  years, 
by  very  unfinished  and  meagre  grounds.  Weary  with  the  labor  and 
expense  of  levelling  earth,  opening  roads  and  walks,  and  clothing  a 
naked  place  with  new  plantations,  all  of  which  he  finds  far  less  easily 
accomplished  than  building  brick  walls  in  the  city,  the  once  san- 
guine improver  often  abates  his  energy,  and  loses  his  interest  in  the 
embellishment  of  his  grounds,  before  his  plans  are  half  perfected. 

All  this  arises  from  a  general  disposition  to  underrate  the  diffi- 
culty and  cost  of  making  plantations,  and  laying  the  groundwork 
of  a  complete  country  residence.  Landscape  gardening,  where  all 
its  elements  require  to  be  newly  arranged,  where  the  scenery  of  a 


HOW  TO  CHOOSE  A  SITE  FOR  A  COUNTRY-SEAT.  161 


place  requires  to  be  almost  wholly  created,  is  by  no  means  either  a 
cheap  or  rapid  process.  Labor  and  patience  must  be  added  to 
taste,  time  and  money,  before  a  bare  site  can  be  turned  into  smooth 
lawns  and  complete  pleasure-grounds. 

The  best  advice  which  the  most  experienced  landscape  gardener 
can  give  an  American  about  to  select  ground  for  a  country  residence, 
is,  therefore,  to  choose  a  site  where  there  is  natural  wood,  and  where 
nature  offers  the  greatest  number  of  good  features  ready  for  a  basis 
upon  which  to  commence  improvements. 

We  have,  already,  so  often  descanted  on  the  superiority  of  trees 
and  lawns  to  all  other  features  of  ornamental  places  united,  that  our 
readers  are  not,  we  trust,  slow  to  side  with  us  in  a  thorough  appre- 
ciation of  their  charms. 

Hence,  when  a  site  for  a  country  place  is  to  be  selected  (after 
health  and  good  neighborhood),  the  first  points  are,  if  possible,  to 
secure  a  position  where  there  is  some  existing  wood,  and  where  the 
ground  is  so  disposed  as  to  offer  a  natural  surface  for  a  fine  lawn. 
These  two  points  secured,  half  the  battle  is  fought,  for  the  framework 
or  background  of  foliage  being  ready  grown,  immediate  shelter, 
shade,  and  effect  is  given  as  soon  as  the  house  is  erected ;  and  a 
surface  well  shaped  for  a  lawn  (or  one  which  requires  but  trifling 
alterations)  once  obtained,  all  the  labor  and  cost  of  grading  is 
avoided,  and  a  single  season's  thorough  preparation  gives  you  velvet 
to  walk  about  upon. 

Some  of  our  readers,  no  doubt,  will  say  this  is  excellent  advice, 
but  unfortunately  not  easily  followed.  So  many  are  forced  to  build 
on  a  bare  site,  "  and  begin  at  the  beginning." 

This  is  no  doubt  occasionally  true,  but  in  nine  cases  out  of  ten, 
in  this  country,  our  own  observation  has  convinced  us  that  the 
choice  of  a  poor  location  is  the  result  of  local  prejudice,  or  want  of 
knowledge  of  the  subject,  rather  than  of  necessity. 

How  frequently  do  we  see  men  paying  large  prices  for  indifferent 
sites,  when  at  a  distance  of  half  a  mile  there  are  one  or  more  posi- 
tions on  which  nature  has  lavished  treasures  of  wood  and  water,  and 
spread  out  undulating  surfaces,  which  seem  absolutely  to  court  the 
finishing  touches  of  the  rural  artist.  Place  a  dwelling  in  such  a 
Bite,  and  it  appropriates  all  nature's  handiwork  to  itself  in  a  moment. 
11 


162 


LANDSCAPE  GARDENING. 


The  masses  of  trees  are  easily  broken  into  groups  that  have  imme- 
diately the  effect  of  old  plantations,  and  all  the  minor  details  of 
shrubbery,  walks,  and  flower  and  fruit  gardens,  fall  gracefully  and 
becomingly  into  their  proper  positions.  Sheltered  and  screened, 
and  brought  into  harmony  with  the  landscape,  these  finishing  touches 
serve  in  turn  to  enhance  the  beauty  and  value  of  the  original  trees 
themselves. 

We  by  no  means  wish  to  deter  those  who  have  an  abundance 
of  means,  taste,  enthusiasm  and  patience,  from  undertaking  the 
creation  of  entire  new  scenery  in  their  country  residences.  There 
are  few  sources  of  satisfaction  more  genuine  and  lasting  than  that 
of  walking  through  extensive  groves  and  plantations,  all  reared  by 
one's  own  hands — to  look  on  a  landscape  which  one  has  transformed 
into  leafy  hills  and  wood-embowered  slopes.  We  scarcely  remem- 
ber more  real  delight  evinced  by  any  youthful  devotee  of  our  favor- 
ite art,  in  all  the  fervor  of  his  first  enthusiasm,  than  has  been  ex- 
pressed to  us  by  one  of  our  venerable  ex-Presidents,  now  in  a  ripe 
old  age,  when  showing  us,  at  various  times,  fine  old  forest  trees, 
oaks,  hickories,  etc.,  which  have  been  watched  by  him  in  their  en- 
tire cycle  of  development,  from  the  naked  seeds  deposited  in  the 
soil  by  his  own  hands,  to  their  now  furrowed  trunks  and  umbra- 
geous heads ! 

But  it  must  be  confessed,  that  it  is  throwing  away  a  large  part  of 
one's  life — and  that  too,  more  especially,  when  the  cup  of  country 
pleasures  is  not  brought  to  the  lips  till  one's  meridian  is  well  nigh 
past — to  take  the  whole  business  of  making  a  landscape  from  the 
invisible  carbon  and  oxygen  waiting  in  soil  and  atmosphere,  to  be 
turned  by  the  slow  alchemy  of  ten  or  twenty  summers'  growth  into 
groves  of  weeping  elms,  and  groups  of  overshadowing  oaks  ! 

Those,  therefore,  who  wish  to  start  with  the  advantage  of  a  good 
patrimony  from  nature,  will  prefer  to  examine  what  mother  Earth 
has  to  offer  them  in  her  choicest  nooks,  before  they  determine  on 
taking  hold  of  some  meagre  scene,  where  the  woodman's  axe  and 
the  ploughman's  furrow  have  long  ago  obliterated  all  the  original 
beauty  of  the  landscape.  If  a  place  cannot  be  found  well  wooded, 
perhaps  a  fringe  of  wood  or  a  background  of  forest  foliage  can  be 
taken  advantage  of.    These  will  give  shelter,  and  serve  as  a  ground- 


HOW  TO  CHOOSE  A  SITE  FOR  A  COUNTRY-SEAT.  163 


work  to  help  on  the  effects  of  the  ornamental  planter.  We  have 
seen  a  cottage  or  a  villa  site  dignified,  and  rendered  attractive  for 
ever,  by  the  possession  of  even  three  or  four  fine  trees  of  the  original 
growth,  judiciously  preserved,  and  taken  as  the  nucleus  of  a  whole 
series  of  belts  and  minor  plantations. 

There  is  another  most  striking  advantage  in  the  possession  of 
considerable  wooded  surface,  properly  located,  in  a  country  resi- 
dence. This  is  the  seclusion  and  privacy  of  the  walks  and  drives, 
which  such  bits  of  woodland  afford.  Walks,  in  open  lawn,  or  even 
amid  belts  of  shrubbery,  are  never  felt  to  have  that  seclusion  and 
comparative  solitude  which  belong  to  the  wilder  aspect  of  wood- 
land scenes.  And  no  contrast  is  more  agreeable  than  that  from 
the  open  sunny  brightness  of  the  lawn  and  pleasure-grounds,  to  the 
retirement  and  quiet  of  a  woodland  walk. 

Again,  it  is  no  small  matter  of  consideration  to  many  persons 
settling  in  the  country,  the  production  of  picturesque  effect,  the 
working  out  of  a  realm  of  beauty  of  their  own,  without  any  serious 
inroads  into  their  incomes.  One's  private  walks  and  parterres,  un- 
luckily, cannot  be  had  at  the  cost  of  one's  daily  bread  and  butter — 
though  the  Beautiful  overtops  the  useful,  as  stars  outshine  farthing 
candles.  But  the  difference  of  cost  between  keeping  up  a  long 
series  of  walks,  in  a  place  mainly  composed  of  flower-garden, 
shrubbery,  and  pleasure-grounds,  compared  with  another,  where 
there  are  merely  lawns  and  sylvan  scenery,  is  like  that  between 
maintaining  a  chancery  suit,  or  keeping  on  pleasant  terms  with 
your  best  friend  or  favorite  country  neighbor.  Open  walks  must 
be  scrupulously  neat,  and  broad  sunshine  and  rich  soil  make  weeds 
grow  faster  than  a  new  city  in  the  best  "  western  diggins,"  and 
your  gardener  has  no  sooner  put  the  series  of  walks  in  perfect  order, 
than  he  looks  over  his  shoulder,  and  beholds  the  enemy  is  there,  to 
be  conquered  over  again.  On  the  other  hand,  woodland  walks  are 
swept  and  repaired  in  the  spring,  and  like  some  of  those  gifted  indi- 
viduals, "born  neat,"  they  require  no  more  attention  than  the  rain- 
bow, to  remain  fresh  and  bright  till  the  autumn  leaves  begin  to  drop 
again. 

Our  citizen  reader,  therefore,  who  wishes  to  enjoy  his  country- 
seat  as  an  elegant  sylvan  retreat,  with  the  greatest  amount  of  beauty 


164 


LANDSCAPE  GARDENING. 


and  enjoyment,  and  the  smallest  care  and  expenditure,  will  choose 
a  place  naturally  well  wooded,  or  where  open  glades  and  bits  of 
lawn  alternate  with  masses  or  groups,  and,  it  may  be,  with  exten- 
sive tracts  of  well-grown  wood.  A  house  once  erected  on  such  a 
site,  the  whole  can  very  easily  be  turned  into  a  charming  labyrinth 
of  beautiful  and  secluded  drives  and  walks.  And  as  our  improver 
cultivates  his  eye  and  his  taste,  nature  will  certainly  give  him  fresh 
hints ;  she  will  tell  him  how  by  opening  a  glade  here,  and  piercing 
a  thicket  there,  by  making  underwood  occasionally  give  place  to 
soft  turf,  so  as  to  show  fine  trunks  to  the  greatest  advantage,  and 
thereby  bringing  into  more  complete  contrast  some  wilder  and 
more  picturesque  dell,  all  the  natural  charms  of  a  place  may  be 
heightened  into  a  beauty  far  more  impressive  and  significant  than 
they  originally  possessed. 

Why  man's  perception  of  the  Beautiful  seems  clouded  over 
in  most  uncultivated  natures,  and  is  only  brought  out  by  a  certain 
process  of  refining  and  mental  culture,  as  the  lapidary  brings 
out,  by  polishing,  all  the  rich  play  of  colors  in  a  stone  that  one 
passes  by  as  a  common  pebble,  we  leave  to  the  metaphysicians  to 
explain.  Certain  it  is,  that  we  see,  occasionally,  lamentable  proofs 
of  the  fact  in  the  treatment  of  nature's  best  features,  by  her  untu- 
tored children.  More  than  one  instance  do  we  call  to  mind,  of  set- 
tlers, in  districts  of  country  where  there  are  masses  and  great  woods 
of  trees,  that  the  draids  would  have  worshipped  for  their  grandeur, 
sweeping  them  all  down  mercilessly  with  their  axes,  and  then  plant- 
ing with  the  supremest  satisfaction,  a  straight  line  of  paltry  saplings 
before  their  doors !  It  is  like  exchanging  a  neighborhood  of  proud 
and  benevolent  yeomanry,  honest  and  free  as  the  soil  they  spring 
from,  for  a  file  of  sentinels  or  gens-d'armes,  that  watch  over  one's 
outgoings  and  incomings,  like  a  chief  of  police  ! 

Most  happily  for  our  country,  and  its  beautiful  rural  scenery,  this 
spirit  of  destruction,  under  the  rapid  development  of  taste  that  is 
taking  place  among  us,  is  very  fast  disappearing.  "Woodman, 
spare  that  tree,"  is  the  choral  sentiment  that  should  be  instilled  and 
taught  at  the  agricultural  schools,  and  re-echoed  by  all  the  agricul- 
tural and  horticultural  societies  in  the  land.  If  we  have  neither  old 
castles  nor  old  associations,  we  have  at  least,  here  and  there,  o.d 


HOW  TO  CHOOSE  A  SITE'  FOE  A  COUNTRY-SEAT.  165 


trees  that  can  teach  us  lessons  of  antiquity,  not  less  instructive  and 
poetical  than  the  ruins  of  a  past  age. 

Our  first  hint,  therefore,  to  persons  about  choosing  a  site  for  a 
country  place,  is,  in  all  possible  cases,  to  look  for  a  situation  where 
there  is  some  natural  wood.  With  this  for  the  warp — strong,  rich, 
and  permanent — you  may  embroider  upon  it  all  the  gold  threads 
of  fruit  and  floral  embellishment  with  an  effect  equally  rapid  and 
successful.  Every  thing  done  upon  such  a  groundwork  will  tell  at 
once ;  and  since  there  is  no  end  to  the  delightful  task  of  perfecting 
a  country  place,  so  long  as  there  are  thirty  thousand  species  of 
plants  known,  and  at  least  thirty  millions  of  varied  combinations  of 
landscape  scenery  possible,  we  think  there  is  little  fear  that  the 
possessor  of  a  country  place  will  not  find  time  enough  to  employ 
his  time,  mind,  and  purse,  if  he  really  loves  the  subject,  even  though 
he  find  himself  in  possession  of  a  fee-simple  of  a  pretty  number  of 
acres  of  fine  wood. 

But  we  have  already  exhausted  our  present  limits,  and  must 
leave  the  discussion  of  other  points  to  be  observed  in  choosing  a 
country  place  until  a  future  number. 


XL 


HOW  TO  ARRANGE  COUNTRY  PLACES. 

March,  1850. 

HOW  to  lay  out  a  country  place?  That  is  a  question  about 
which  we  and  our  readers  might  have  many  a  long  conversa- 
tion, if  we  could  he  brought  on  familiar  terms,  colloquially  speak- 
ing, with  all  parts  of  the  Union  where  rural  improvements  are  going 
on.  As  it  is,  we  shall  touch  on  a  few  leading  points  this  month, 
which  may  be  considered  of  universal  application. 

These  cardinal  points  within  the  bounds  of  a  country  residence, 
are  (taking  health  and  pleasant  locality  for  granted),  convenience, 
comfort — or  social  enjoyment — and  beauty  ;  and  we  shall  touch  on 
them  in  a  very  rambling  manner. 

Innumerable  are  the  mistakes  of  those  novices  in  fonning  coun- 
try places,  who  reverse  the  order  of  these  three  conditions, — and 
placing  beauty  first  (as,  intellectually  considered,  it  deserves  to  be), 
leave  the  useful,  convenient,  and  comfortable,  pretty  much  to  them- 
selves ;  or,  at  least,  consider  them  entitled  only  to  a  second  place  in 
their  consideration.  In  the  country  places  which  they  create,  the 
casual  visitor  may  be  struck  with  many  beautiful  effects  ;  but  when 
a  trifling  observation  has  shown  him  that  this  beauty  is  not  the  re- 
sult of  a  harmony  between  the  real  and  the  ideal, — or,  in  other 
words,  between  the  surface  of  things  intended  to  be  seen  and  the 
things  themselves,  as  they  minister  to  our  daily  wants, — then  all  the 
pleasure  vanishes,  and  the  opposite  feeling  takes  its  place. 

To  begin  at  the  very  root  of  things,  the  most  defective  matter  in 
laying  out  our  country  places  (as  we  know  from  experience),  is  the 


HOW  TO  ARRANGE  COUNTRY  PLACES. 


167 


want  of  forethought  and  plan,  regarding  the  location  of  what  is 
called  the  kitchen  offices.  By  this,  we  refer,  of  course,  to  that  wing 
or  portion  of  a  country  house  containing  the  kitchen,  with  its  store- 
room, pantry,  scullery,  laundry,  wood-house,  and  whatever  else,  more 
or  less,  may  be  included  under  this  head. 

Our  correspondent,  Jeffreys,  has,  in  his  usual  bold  manner, 
pointed  out  how  defective,  in  all  cases  (where  the  thing  is  not  im- 
possible), is  a  country  house  with  a  kitchen  below  stairs ;  and  we 
have  but  lamely  apologized  for  the  practice  in  some  houses  by  the 
greater  economy  of  such  an  arrangement.  But,  in  truth,  we  quite 
agree  with  him,  that  no  country  house  is  complete  unless  the  kitchen 
offices  are  on  the  same  level  as  the  principal  floor  containing  the 
living  apartments. 

At  first  thought,  our  inexperienced  readers  may  not  see  precisely 
what  this  has  to  do  with  laying  out  the  grounds  of  a  country  place. 
But,  indeed,  it  is  the  very  starting  point  and  fundamental  substratum 
on  which  the  whole  thing  rests.  There  can  be  no  complete  countiy 
place,  however  large  or  small,  in  which  the  greatest  possible  amount 
of  privacy  and  seclusion  is  not  attained  within  its  grounds,  espe- 
cially within  that  part  intended  for  the  enjoyment  of  the  family.  Now 
it  is  very  clear,  that  there  can  be  no  seclusion  where  there  is  no 
separation  of  uses,  no  shelter,  no  portions  set  apart  for  especial  pur- 
poses, both  of  utility  and  enjoyment.  First  of  all,  then,  in  planning 
a  countiy  place,  the  house  should  be  so  located  that  there  shall  be 
at  least  two  sides  ;  an  entrance  side,  which  belongs  to  the  living,  or 
best  apartments  of  the  house  ;  and  a  kitchen  side  (or  "  blind  side"), 
complete  in  itself,  and  more  or  less  shut  out  from  aU  observation 
from  the  remaining  portions  of  the  place. 

This  is  as  indispensable  for  the  comfort  of  the  inmates  of  the 
kitchen  as  those  of  the  parlor.  By  shutting  off  completely  one  side 
of  the  house  by  belts  or  plantations  of  trees  and  shrubbery  from  the 
rest,  you  are  enabled  to  make  that  part  more  extensive  and  complete 
in  itself.  The  kitchen  yard,  the  clothes-drying  ground,  the  dairy, 
and  all  the  structures  which  are  so  practically  important  in  a  country 
house,  have  abundant  room  and  space,  and  the  domestics  can  per- 
form their  appointed  labors  with  ease  and  freedom,  without  disturb- 
ing the  different  aspect  of  any  other  portion  of  the  grounds.  There 


168 


LANDSCAPE  GARDENING. 


are  few  new  sites  where  there  is  not  naturally  a  "  blind  side"  indi- 
cated ;  a  side  where  there  is  a  fringe  of  wood,  or  some  natural  dis- 
position of  surface,  which  points  it  out  as  the  spot  where  the  kitchen 
offices  should  be  placed,  in  order  to  have  the  utmost  shelter  and 
privacy, — at  the  same  time  leaving  the  finer  glades,  openings,  and 
views,  for  the  more  refined,  social  and  beautiful  portions  of  the  resi- 
dence. Wherever  these  indications  are  wanting,  they  must  be 
created,  by  artificial  planting  of  belts,  and  groups  of  trees  and 
shrubs, — not  in  stiff  and  formal  lines  like  fences,  but  in  an  irregular 
and  naturally  varied  manner,  so  as  to  appear  as  if  formed  of  a  natu- 
ral copse,  or,  rather,  so  as  not  to  attract  special  attention  at  all. 

We  are  induced  to  insist  upon  this  point  the  more  strenuously, 
because,  along  with  the  taste  for  the  architecture  of  Pericles  (may 
we  indulge  the  hope  that  he  is  not  permitted  to  behold  the  Greek 
architecture  of  the  new  world !)  which  came  into  fashion  in  this 
country  fifteen  or  twenty  years  ago,  came  also  the  fashion  of  sweep- 
ing away  every  thing  that  was  not  temple-like  about  the  house.  Far 
from  recognizing  that  man  lives  a  domestic  life, — that  he  cooks, 
washes,  bakes  and  churns  in  his  country  house,  and,  therefore,  that 
kitchen  offices  (tastefully  concealed  if  you  please,  but  still  ample) 
are  a  necessary,  and  therefore  truthful  part  of  his  dwelling, — they 
went  upon  the  principle  that  if  man  had  fallen,  and  was  no  longer 
one  of  the  gods,  he  might  still  live  in  a  temple  dedicated  to  the  im- 
mortals. A  clear  space  on  all  sides — pediments  at  each  end,  and 
perhaps  a  colonnade  all  round ;  this  is  the  undomestic,  uncomfortable 
ideal  of  half  the  better  country  houses  in  America. 

Having  fixed  upon  and  arranged  the  blind  side  of  the  house — 
which,  of  course,  will  naturally  be  placed  so  as  to  connect  itself 
directly  with  the  stable  and  other  out-buildings, — the  next  point  of 
attack  is  the  kitchen  garden.  This  is  not  so  easily  disposed  of  as 
many  imagine.  All  persons  of  good  taste  agree  that  however  neces- 
sary, satisfactory,  and  pleasant  a  thing  a  good  kitchen  garden  is,  it 
!s  not,  aesthetically,  considered  a  beautiful  thing ;  and  it  never  accords 
well  with  the  ornamental  portions  of  a  country  place,  where  the  latter 
is  large  enough  to  have  a  lawn,  pleasure-grounds,  or  other  portions 
that  give  it  an  ornamental  character.  The  fruit  trees  (and  we  in- 
clude now,  for  the  sake  of  conciseness,  kitchen  and  fruit  garden), 


HOW  TO  ARRANGE  COUNTRY  PLACES. 


169 


the  vegetables,  and  all  that  makes  the  utility  of  the  kitchen  garden, 
never  harmonize  with  the  more  graceful  forms  of  ornamental  scene- 
ry. Hence,  the  kitchen  garden,  in  a  complete  countiy  place,  should 
always  form  a  scene  by  itself,  and  should,  also,  be  shut  out  from 
the  lawn  or  ornamental  grounds  by  plantations  of  trees  and  shrubs. 
A  good  locality,  as  regards  soil,  is  an  important  point  to  be  consi- 
dered in  determining  its  site ;  and  it  will  usually  adjoin  the  space 
given  to  the  kitchen  offices,  or  that  near  the  stable  or  barns,  or,  perhaps 
lie  between  both,  so  that  it  also  is  kept  on  the  blind  side  of  the  house. 

After  having  disposed  of  the  useful  and  indispensable  portions  • 
of  the  place,  by  placing  them  in  the  spots  at  once  best  fitted  for 
them,  and  least  interfering  with  the  convenience  and  beauty  of  the 
remaining  portions,  let  us  now  turn  to  what  may  properly  be  called 
the  ornamental  portion  of  the  place. 

This  may  be  confined  to  a  mere  bit  of  lawn,  extending  a  few 
feet  in  front  of  the  parlor  windows,  or  it  may  cover  a  number  of 
acres,  according  to  the  extent  of  the  place,  and  the  taste  and  means 
of  the  owner. 

Be  that  as  it  may,  the  groundwork  of  this  part  should,  in  oui 
judgment,  always  be  lawn.  There  is  in  the  country  no  object  which 
at  all  seasons  and  times  gives  the  .constant  satisfaction  of  the  green 
turf  of  a  nicely  kept  lawn.  If  your  place  is  large,  so  much  larger 
and  broader  is  the  good  effect  of  the  lawn,  as  it  stretches  away,  over 
gentle  undulations,  alternately  smiling  and  looking  serious,  in  the 
play  of  sunshine  and  shade  that  rests  upon  it.  If  it  is  small — a 
mere  bit  of  green  turf  before  your  door — then  it  forms  the  best  and 
most  becoming  setting  to  the  small  beds  and  masses  of  ever-bloom- 
ing roses,  verbenas,  and  gay  annuals,  with  which  you  embroider  it, 
like  a  carpet. 

Lawn  there  must  be,  to  give  any  refreshment  to  the  spirit  of 
man  in  our  country  places  ;  for  nothing  is  so  intolerable  to  the  eye 
as  great  flower-gardens  of  parched  earth,  lying  half  baked  in  the 
meridian  sun  of  an  American  summer.  And  though  no  nation 
under  the  sun  may  have  such  lawns  as  the  British,  because  Britain 
lies  in  the  lap  of  the  sea,  with  a  climate  always  more  or  less  humid, 
yet  green  and  pleasant  lawns  most  persons  may  have  in  the  Northern 
States,  who  will  make  the  soil  deep  and  keep  the  grass  well  mown. 


LANDSCAPE  GARDENING. 


To  mow  a  large  surface  of  lawn — that  is  to  say,  many  acies — 
is  a  thing  attempted  in  but  few  places  in  America,  from  the  high 
price  of  labor.  But  a  happy  expedient  comes  in  to  our  aid,  to  save 
labor  and  trouble,  and  produce  all  the  good  effect  of  a  well-mown 
lawn.  We  mean  sheep  and  wire  fences.  Our  neighbor  and  cor- 
respondent, Mr.  Sargent,  of  Wodenethe,  on  the  Hudson,  who  passed 
a  couple  of  years  abroad,  curiously  gleaning  all  clever  foreign  no- 
tions that  were  really  worth  naturalizing  at  home,  has  already  told 
om  readers  how  wire  fences  may  be  constructed  round  lawns  or 
portions  of  the  pleasure-grounds,  so  that  only  a  strip  round  the  house 
need  be  mown,  while  the  extent  of  the  lawn  is  kept  short  by  sheep. 
This  fence,  which  costs  less  than  any  tolerable  looking  fence  of 
other  materials,  is  abundantly  strong  to  turn  both  sheep  and  cattle, 
and  is  invisible  at  the  distance  of  40  or  50  rods.  Mr.  Sargent  is  not 
a  theorist,  but  has  actually  inclosed  his  own  lawn  of  several  acres 
in  this  way ;  and  those  who  have  examined  the  plan  are  struck  with 
the  usefulness  and  economy  of  the  thing,  in  all  ornamental  country 
places  of  considerable  extent. 

We  have  said  nothing,  as  yet,  of  the  most  important  feature  of 
all  country  places — trees.  A  country  place  without  trees,  is  like  a 
caliph  without  his  beard ;  in  other  words,  it  is  not  a  country  place. 
We  shall  assume,  therefore,  that  all  proprietors  who  do  not  already 
possess  this  indispensable  feature,  will  set  about  planting  with  more 
ardor  than  Walter  Scott  ever  did.  It  is  the  one  thing  needful  for 
them ;  and  deep  trenching,  plentiful  manuring,  and  sufficient  mulch- 
ing, are  the  powerful  auxiliaries  to  help  them  forward  in  the  good 
work. 

It  is,  of  course,  impossible  for  us  to  tell  om  readers  how  to 
arrange  trees  tastefully  and  well,  under  all  circumstances,  in  this 
short  chapter.  We  can  offer  them,  however,  two  or  three  hints  as 
to  arrangement,  which  they  may  perhaps  profit  by. 

The  first  principle  in  ornamental  planting,  is  to  study  the  charac- 
ter of  the  place  to  be  improved,  and  to  plant  in  accordance  with  it. 
If  your  place  has  breadth,  and  simplicity,  and  fine  open  views,  plant 
in  groups,  and  rather  sparingly,  so  as  to  heighten  and  adorn  the 
landscape,  not  shut  out  and  obstruct  the  beauty  of  prospect  which 
nature  has  placed  before  your  eyes.    Scattered  groups,  with  con- 


HOW  TO  ARRANGE  COUNTRY  PLACES. 

tinuous  reaches  or  vistas  between,  produce  the  best  effect  in  such 
situations.  In  other  and  more  remote  parts  of  the  place,  greater 
density  of  foliage  may  serve  as  a  contrast. 

In  residences  where  there  is  little  or  no  distant  view,  the  con- 
trary plan  must  be  pursued.  Intricacy  and  variety  must  be  created 
by  planting.  Walks  must  be  led  in  various  directions,  and  con- 
cealed from  each  other  by  thickets,  and  masses  of  shrubs  and  trees, 
and  occasionally  rich  masses  of  foliage  ;  not  forgetting  to  heighten 
all,  however,  by  an  occasional  contrast  of  broad,  unbroken  surface 
of  lawn. 

In  all  country  places,  and  especially  in  small  ones,  a  great  object 
to  be  kept  in  view  in  planting,  is  to  produce  as  perfect  seclusion 
and  privacy  within  the  grounds  as  possible.  We  do  not  entirely 
feel  that  to  be  our  own,  which  is  indiscriminately  enjoyed  by  each 
passer-by,  and  every  man's  individuality  and  home-feeling  is  invaded 
by  the  presence  of  unbidden  guests.  Therefore,  while  you  preserve 
the  beauty  of  the  view,  shut  out,  by  boundary  belts  and  thickets,  all 
eyes  but  those  that  are  fairly  within  your  own  grounds.  This  will 
enable  you  to  feel  at  home  all  over  your  place,  and  to  indulge  your 
individual  taste  in  walking,  riding,  reciting  your  next  speech  or 
sermon,  or  wearing  any  peculiarly  rustic  costume,  without  being 
suspected  of  being  a  "  queer  fellow"  by  any  of  your  neighbors ;  while 
it  will  add  to  the  general  beauty  and  interest  of  the  country  at 
large, — since,  in  passing  a  fine  place,  we  always  imagine  it  finer 
than  it  is,  if  a  boundary  plantation,  by  concealing  it,  forces  us  to 
depend  wholly  on  the  imagination. 


XII. 


THE  MANAGEMENT  OF  LARGE  COUNTRY  PLACES. 

March,  1851. 

COUNTRY  places  that  may  properly  be  called  ornamental,  are 
increasing  so  fast,  especially  in  the  neighborhood  of  the  large 
cities,  that  a  word  or  two  more,  touching  their  treatment,  will  not 
be  looked  upon  as  out  of  place  here. 

All  our  country  residences  may  readily  be  divided  into  two 
classes.  The  first  and  largest  class,  is  the  suburban  place  of  from 
five  to  twenty  or  thirty  acres ;  the  second  is  the  country-seat,  prop- 
erly so  called,  which  consists  of  from  thirty  to  five  hundred  or  more 
acres. 

In  all  suburban  residences,  from  the  limited  extent  of  ground, 
and  the  desire  to  get  the  utmost  beauty  from  it,  the  whole,  or  at 
least  a  large  part  of  the  ornamental  portion,  must  be  considered 
only  as  pleasure-grounds — a  term  used  to  denote  a  garden  scene, 
consisting  of  trees,  shrubs,  and  flowers,  generally  upon  a  basis  of 
lawn,  laid  out  in  walks  of  different  styles,  and  kept  in  the  highest 
order.  The  aim,  in  this  kind  of  residence,  is  to  produce  the  great- 
est possible  variety  within  a  given  space,  and  to  attain  the  utmost 
beauty  of  gardening  as  an  art,  by  the  highest  keeping  and  culture 
which  the  means  of  the  proprietor  will  permit. 

Of  this  kind  of  pleasure-ground  residence,  we  have  numberless 
excellent  examples — and  perhaps  nowhere  more  admirable  specimens 
than  in  the  neighborhood  of  Boston.  Both  in  design  and  execution, 
these  little  places  will,  at  the  present  moment,  bear  very  favorable 
comparison  with  many  in  older  countries.    The  practical  manage- 


THE  MANAGEMENT  OF  LARGE  COUNTRY  PLACES.  173 

ment  of  such  places  is  also  very  well  understood,  and  they  need  no 
especial  mention  in  these  remarks. 

But  in  the  larger  country  places  there  are  ten  instances  of  fail- 
ure for  one  of  success.  This  is  not  owing  to  the  want  of  natural 
beauty,  for  the  sites  are  picturesque,  the  surface  varied,  and  the  woods 
and  plantations  excellent.  The  failure  consists,  for  the  most  part,  in 
a  certain  incongruity  and  want  of  distinct  character  in  the  treatment 
of  the  place  as  a  whole.  They  are  too  large  to  be  kept  in  order  as 
pleasure-grounds,  while  they  are  not  laid  out  or  treated  as  parks. 
The  grass  which  stretches  on  all  sides  of  the  house,  is  partly  mown, 
for  lawn,  and  partly  for  hay ;  the  lines  of  the  farm  and  the  ornamental 
portion  of  the  grounds,  meet  in  a  confused  and  unsatisfactory  manner, 
and  the  result  is  a  residence  pretending  to  be  much  superior  to  a 
common  farm,  and  yet  not  rising  to  the  dignity  of  a  really  tasteful 
country-seat. 

It  appears  to  us  that  a  species  of  country  places  particularly 
adapted  to  this  country,  has  not,  as  yet,  been  attempted,  though  it 
offers  the  largest  possible  satisfaction  at  the  least  cost. 

We  mean  a  place  which  is  a  combination  of  the  park-like  and 
pastoral  landscape.  A  place  in  which  the  chief  features  should  be 
fine  forest  trees,  either  natural  or  planted,  and  scattered  over  a  sur- 
face of  gVass,  kept  short  by  the  pasturage  of  fine  cattle.  A  place, 
in  short,  where  sylvan  and  pastoral  beauty,  added  to  large  extent  and 
great  facility  of  management,  would  cost  no  more  than  a  much 
smaller  demesne,  where  a  large  part  is  laid  out,  planted,  and  kept 
in  an  expensive  though  still  unsatisfactory  manner. 

There  are  sites  of  this  kind,  already  prettily  wooded,  which  may 
be  had  in  many  desirable  localities,  at  much  cheaper  rates  than  the 
improved  sites.  On  certain  portions  of  the  Hudson,  for  instance, 
we  could  purchase,  to-day,  finely  wooded  sites  and  open  glades,  in 
the  midst  of  fine  scenery — in  fact  what  could,  with  very  trifling  ex- 
pense be  turned  into  a  natural  park — at  $60  per  acre,  while  the  im- 
proved sites  will  readily  command  $200  or  $300  per  acre. 

Considerable  familiarity  with  the  country-seats  on  the  Hudson, 
enables  us  to  state  that,  for  the  most  part,  few  persons  keep  up  a 
fine  Country  place,  counting  all  the  products  of  the  farm-land  at- 
tached to  it,  without  being  more  or  less  out  of  pocket  at  the  end  of 


174 


LANDSCAPE  GARDENING. 


the  year.  And  yet  there  are  very  few  of  the  large  places  that  can 
be  looked  upon  as  examples  of  tolerable  keeping. 

The  explanation  of  this  lies  in  the  high  price  of  all  kinds  of  la- 
bor— which  costs  us  nearly  double  or  treble  what  it  does  on  the 
other  side  of  the  Atlantic,  and  the  comparatively  small  profits  of 
land  managed  in  the  expensive  way  common  on  almost  all  farms 
attached  to  our  Atlantic  countiy-seats.  The  remedy  for  this  unsat- 
isfactory condition  of  the  large  country  places  is,  we  think,  a  very 
simple  one — that  of  turning  a  large  part  of  their  areas  into  park 
meadow,  and  feeding  it,  instead  of  mowing  and  cultivating  it. 

The  great  and  distinguishing  beauty  of  England,  as  every  one 
knows,  is  its  parks.  And  yet  the  English  parks  are  only  very  large 
meadows,  studded  with  oaks  and  elms — and  grazed — profitably 
grazed,  by  deer,  cattle,  and  sheep.  We  believe  it  is  a  commonly 
received  idea  in  this  country,  with  those  who  have  not  travelled 
abroad,  that  English  parks  are  portions  of  highly-dressed  scenery — 
at  least  that  they  are  kept  short  by  frequent  mowing,  etc.  It  is  an 
entire  mistake.  The  mown  lawn  with  its  polished  garden  scenery, 
is  confined  to  the  pleasure-grounds  proper — a  spot  of  greater  or  less 
size,  immediately  surrounding  the  house,  and  wholly  separated  from 
the  park  by  a  terrace  wall,  or  an  iron  fence,  or  some  handsome 
architectural  barrier.  The  park,  which  generally  comes  quite  up  to 
the  house  on  one  side,  receives  no  other  attention  than  such  as  be- 
longs to  the  care  of  the  animals  that  graze  in  it.  As  most  of  these 
parks  afford  excellent  pasturage,  and  though  apparently  one  wide, 
unbroken  surface,  they  are  really  subdivided  into  large  fields,  by 
wire  or  other  invisible  fences,  they  actually  pay  a  very  fair  income 
to  the  proprietor,  in  the  shape  of  good  beef,  mutton,  and  venison. 

Certainly,  nothing  can  be  a  more  beautiful  sight  in  its  way,  than 
the  numerous  herds  of  deer,  short-horned  cattle  and  fine  sheep, 
which  embroider  and  give  life  to  the  scenery  of  an  English  country 
home  of  this  kind.*    There  is  a  quiet  pastoral  beauty,  a  spacious- 

*  All  attempts  to  render  our  native  deer  really  tame  in  home  grounds 
have,  so  far  as  we  know,  failed  among  us — though  with  patience  the  thing 
may  doubtless  be  done.  It  would  be  well  worth  while  to  import  the  finer 
breeds  of  the  English  deer,  which  are  thoroughly  domesticated  in  their  habits, 
and  the  most  beautiful  animals  for  a  park. 


THE  MANAGEMENT  OF  LARGE  COUNTRY  PLACES.  175 

ness  and  dignity,  and  a  simple  feeling  of  nature  about  it  which  no 
highly  decorated  pleasure-grounds  or  garden  scenery  can  approach, 
as  the  continual  surrounding  of  a  country  residence.  It  is,  in  fact, 
the  poetical  idea  of  Arcadia,  a  sort  of  ideal  nature — softenedk  refined, 
and  ennobled,  without  being  made  to  look  artificial. 

Of  course,  any  thing  like  English  parks,  so  far  as  regards  extent, 
is  almost  out  of  the  question  here ;  simply  because  land  and  for- 
tunes are  widely  divided  here,  instead  of  being  kept  in  large  bodies, 
intact,  as  in  England.  Still,  as  the  first  class  country-seats  of  the 
Hudson  now  command  from  $50,000  to  $75,000,  it  is  evident  that 
there  is  a  growing  taste  for  space  and  beauty  in  the  private  do- 
mains of  republicans.  What  we  wish  to  suggest  now,  is,  simply, 
that  the  greatest  beauty  and  satisfaction  may  be  had  here,  as  in  Eng- 
land— (for  the  plan  really  suits  our  limited  means  better),  by  treat- 
ing the  bulk  of  the  ornamental  portion  as  open  park  pasture — and 
thus  getting  the  greatest  space  and  beauty  at  the  least  original  ex- 
penditure, and  with  the  largest  annual  profit. 

To  some  of  our  readers  who  have  never  seen  the  thing,  the  idea 
of  a  park,  pastured  by  animals  almost  to  the  very  door,  will  seem 
at  variance  with  all  decorum  and  elegance.  This,  however,  is  not 
actually  the  case.  The  house  should  either  stand  on  a  raised  ter- 
race of  turf,  which,  if  it  is  a  fine  mansion,  may  have  a  handsome 
terrace  wall,  or  if  a  cottage,  a  pretty  rustic  or  trellis  fence,  to  sepa- 
rate it  from  the  park.  Directly  around  the  house,  and  stretching 
on  one  or  more  sides,  in  the  rear,  lie  the  more  highly  dressed  portions 
of  the  scene,  which  may  be  a  flower-garden  and  shrubbery  set  in 
a  small  bit  of  lawn  kept  as  short  as  velvet — or  may  be  pleasure- 
grounds,  fruit,  and  kitchen-gardens,  so  multiplied  as  to  equal  the 
largest  necessities  of  the  place  and  family.  All  that  is  to  be  borne 
in  mind  is,  that  the  park  may  be  as  large  as  you  can  afford  to  pur- 
chase— for  it  may  be  kept  up  at  a  profit — while  the  pleasure- 
grounds  and  garden  scenery,  may,  with  this  management,  be  com- 
pressed into  the  smallest  space  actually  deemed  necessary  to  the 
place — thereby  lessening  labor,  and  bestowing  that  labor,  in  a  con- 
centrated space,  where  it  will  tell. 

The  practical  details  of  keeping  the  stock  upon  such  a  place,  are 
familiar  to  almost  every  farmer.  Of  course,  in  a  country  place,  only 


176 


LANDSCAPE  GARDENING. 


comely  animals  would  be  kept,  and  a  preference  would  be  given  to 
breeds  of  fine  stock  that  "  take  on  flesh  "  readily,  and  command  the 
best  price  in  the  market.  In  cases  where  an  interest  is  taken  in  breed- 
ing cattle,  provision  must  be  made,  in  the  shape  of  hay  and  shelter, 
for  the  whole  year  round ;  but  we  imagine  the  most  profitable,  as 
well  as  least  troublesome  mode,  to  the  majority  of  gentlemen  pro- 
prietors, would  be  to  buy  the  suitable  stock  in  the  spring,  put  it  in 
good  condition,  and  sell  it  again  in  the  autumn.  The  sheep  would 
also  require  to  be  folded  at  night  to  prevent  the  flocks  from  being 
ravaged  by  dogs. 

With  this  kind  of  arrangement  and  management  of  a  country 
place,  the  owner  would  be  in  a  position  to  reap  the  greatest  enjoy- 
ment with  the  least  possible  care.  To  country  gentlemen  ignorant 
of  farming,  such  an  extent  of  park,  with  its  drives  and  walks,  along 
with  its  simplicity  of  management,  would  be  a  relief  from  a  multi- 
tude of  embarrassing  details ;  while  to  those  who  have  tried,  to  their 
cost,  the  expenses  of  keeping  a  large  place  in  high  order,  it  would 
be  an  equal  relief  to  the  debtor  side  of  the  cash  account. 


xra. 


COUNTRY  PLACES  IN  AUTUMN. 

December,  1850. 

NOVEMBER,  which  is  one  of  the  least  interesting  months  to  those 
who  come  into  the  country  to  admire  the  freshness  of  spring 
or  the  fulness  of  summer  and  early  autumn,  is  one  of  the  most  in- 
teresting to  those  who  live  in  the  country,  or  who  have  country 
places  which  they  wish  to  improve. 

When  the  leaves  have  all  dropped  from  the  trees,  when  the  en- 
chantment and  illusion  of  summer  are  over,  and  "  the  fall "  (our  ex- 
pressive American  word  for  autumn)  has  stripped  the  glory  from 
the  sylvan  landscape,  then  the  rural  improver  puts  on  his  spectacles, 
and  looks  at  his  demesne  with  practical  and  philosophical  eyes. 
Taking  things  at  their  worst,  as  they  appear  now,  he  sets  about  find- 
ing out  what  improvements  can  be  made,  and  how  the  suiToundings 
which  make  his  home,  can  be  so  arranged  as  to  offer  a  fairer  picture 
to  the  eye,  or  a  larger  share  of  enjoyments  and  benefits  to  the 
family,  in  the  year  that  is  to  come. 

The  end  of  autumn  is  the  best  month  to  buy  a  country  place, 
and  the  best  to  improve  one.  You  see  it  then  in  the  barest  skeleton 
expression  of  ugliness  or  beauty — with  all  opportunity  to  learn  its 
defects,  all  its  weak  points  visible,  all  its  possible  capacities  and  sug- 
gestions for  improvement  laid  bare  to  you.  If  it  satisfy  you  now, 
either  in  its  present  aspect,  or  in  what  promise  you  see  in  it  of  order 
and  beauty  after  your  moderate  plans  are  carried  out,  you  may  buy 
it,  with  the  full  assurance  that  you  will  not  have  cause  to  repent 
when  you  learn  to  like  it  better  as  seen  in  the  fresher  and  fairer  as- 
pect of  its  summer  loveliness. 
12 


178 


LANDSCAPE  GARDENING-. 


As  a  season,  for  rural  improvements,  trie  fall  is  preferable  to  the 
spring,  partly  because  the  earth  is  dryer,  and  more  easily  moved  and 
worked,  and  partly  because  there  is  more  time  to  do  well  what  we 
undertake.  In  the  middle  States,  fine  autumnal  weather  is  often 
continued  till  the  middle  of  December ;  and  as  long  as  the  ground 
is  open  and  mellow,  the  planting  of  hardy  trees  may  be  done  witb 
the  best  chances  of  success.  The  surface  may  be  smoothed,  drains 
made,  walks  and  roads  laid  out,  and  all  the  heavier  operations  on 
the  surface  of  the  earth — so  requisite  as  a  groundwork  for  lawns  and 
pleasure-grounds,  kitchen  or  flower-gardens — may  be  earned  on 
more  cheaply  and  efficiently  than  amid  the  bustle  and  hurry  of 
spring.  And  when  sharp  frosty  nights  fairly  set  in,  then  is  the  time 
to  commence  the  grander  operations  of  transplanting.  Then  is  the 
time  for  moving  large  trees — elms,  maples,  etc. ;  a  few  of  which  will 
give  more  effect  to  a  new  and  bare  site  than  thousands  of  the  young 
things,  which  are  the  despair  of  all  improvers  of  little  faith  and  ar- 
dent imaginations.  With  two  or  three  "  hands,"  a  pair  of  horses  or 
oxen,  a  "  stone  boat,"  or  low  sled,  and  some  ropes  or  "  tackle,"  the 
removal  of  trees  twenty-five  feet  high,  and  six  or  eight  inches  in  the 
diameter  of  the  stem,  is  a  very  simple  and  easy  process.  A  little 
practice  will  enable  a  couple  of  men  to  do  it  most  perfectly  and 
efficiently ;  and  if  only  free-growing  trees,  like  elms,  maples,  lin- 
dens, or  horse-chestnuts,  are  chosen,  there  is  no  more  doubt  of  suc- 
cess than  in  planting  a  currant  bush.  Two  or  three  points  we  may, 
however,  repeat,  for  the  benefit  of  the  novice,  viz.,  to  prepare  the 
soil  thoroughly  by  digging  a  large  hole,  trenching  it  two-and-a-half 
feet  deep,  and  filling  it  with  rich  soil ;  to  take  up  the  tree  with  a 
good  mass  of  roots,  inclosed  in  a  ball  of  frozen  earth  ;*  and  to  re- 
duce the  ends  of  the  limbs,  evenly  ah  over  the  top,  in  order  to  lessen 
the  demand  for  sustenance,  made  on  the  roots  the  first  summer  after 
removal. 

This  is  not  only  the  season  to  plant  very  hardy  trees ;  it  is  also 

*  This  is  easily  done  by  digging  a  trench  all  round,  leaving  a  ball  about 
four  or  five  feet  in  diameter ;  undermining  it  well,  and  leaving  it  to  freeze  for 
one  or  two  nights.  Then  turn  the  tree  down,  place  the  uplifted  side  of  the 
ball  upon  the  "  stone  boat ; "  right  the  trunk,  and  get  the  whole  ball  firmly 
upon  the  sled,  and  then  the  horses  will  drag  it  easily  to  its  new  position. 


COUNTRY  PLACES  IN  AUTUMN. 


179 


the  time  to  feed  those  which  are  already  established,  and  are  living 
on  too  scanty  an  income.  And  how  many  trees  are  there  upon 
lawns  and  in  gardens — shade  trees  and  fruit  trees — that  are  literally 
so  poor  that  they  are  starving  to  death  !  Perhaps  they  have  once 
been  luxuriant  and  thrifty,  and  have  borne  the  finest  fruit  and  blos- 
soms, so  that  their  owners  have  smiled,  and  said  pleasant  words  in 
their  praise,  as  they  passed  beneath  their  boughs.  Then  they  had 
a  good  subsistence ;  the  native  strength  of  the  soil  passed  into  their 
limbs,  and  made  them  stretch  out  and  expand  with  all  the  vigor  of 
a  young  Hercules.  Now,  alas,  they  are  mossy  and  decrepit — the 
leaves  small — the  blossoms  or  fruit  indifferent.  And  yet  they  are 
not  old.  Nay,  they  are  quite  in  the  prime  of  life.  If  they  could 
speak  to  their  master  or  mistress,  they  would  say — "  First  of  all,  give 
us  something  to  eat.  Here  are  we,  tied  hand  and  foot  to  one  spot, 
where  we  have  been  feeding  this  dozen  or  twenty  years,  until  we 
are  actually  reduced  to  our  last  morsel.  What  the  gardener  has  oc- 
casionally given  us,  in  his  scanty  top-dressing  of  manure,  has  been 
as  a  mere  crust  thrown  out  to  a  famished  man.  If  you  wish  us  to 
salute  you  next  year  with  a  glorious  drapery  of  green  leaves — the 
deepest,  richest  green,  and  start  into  new  forms  of  luxuriant  growth 
— -feed  us.  Dig  a  trench  around  us,  at  the  extremity  of  our  roots, 
throw  away  all  the  old  worn-out  soil  you  find  there,  and  replace  it 
with  some  fresh  soil  from  the  lower  comer  of  some  rich  meadow, 
where  it  has  lain  fallow  for  years,  growing  richer  every  day.  Mingle 
this  with  some  manure,  some  chopped  sods — any  thing  that  can 
allay  our  thirst  and  satisfy  our  hunger  for  three  or  four  years  to 
come,  and  see  what  a  new  leaf — yes,  what  volumes  of  new  leaves 
we  will  turn  over  for  you  next  year.  "We  are  fruit  trees,  perhaps, 
and  you  wish  us  to  bear  fair  and  excellent  fruit.  Then  you  must 
also  feed  us.  The  soil  is  thin,  and  contains  little  that  we  can  digest ; 
or  it  is  old,  and  '  sour '  for  the  want  of  being  aired.  Remove  all 
the  earth  for  several  yards  about  us,  baring  some  of  our  roots — and 
perhaps  shortening  a  few.  Trench  the  ground,  when  our  new  roots 
will  ramble,  next  year,  twenty  inches  deep.  Mingle  the  top  and 
bottom  soil,  rejecting  the  worst  parts  of  it,  and  making  the  void  good 
— very  good — by  manure,  ashes,  and  decaying  leaves.    Then  you 


180 


LANDSCAPE  GARDENING. 


shall  have  bushels  of  fair  and  fine  pears  and  apples,  where  you  now 
have  pecks  of  spotted  and  deformed  fruit." 

Such  is  the  sermon  which  the  "  tongues  in  trees  "  preach  to  those 
who  listen  to  them  at  this  season  of  the  year.  We  do  not  mean  to 
poets,  or  lovers  of  nature  (for  to  them,  they  have  other  and  more 
romantic  stories  to  tell) ;  but  to  the  earnest,  practical,  working 
owners  of  the  soil, — especially  to  those  who  grudge  a  little  food  and 
a  little  labor,  in  order  that  the  trees  may  live  contented,  healthy, 
beautiful,  and  fruitful  lives.  We  have  written  it  down  here,  in 
order  that  our  readers,  when  they  walk  round  their  gardens  and 
grounds,  and  think  "  the  work  of  the  season  is  all  done,"  may  not 
be  wholly  blind  and  deaf  to  the  fact  that  the  trees  are  as  capable, 
in  their  way,  of  hunger  and  thirst,  as  the  cattle  in  the  farm-yards  ; 
and  since,  at  the  oftenest,  they  only  need  feeding  once  a  year,  now 
is  the  cheapest  and  the  best  time  for  doing  it.  The  very  frosts  of 
winter  creep  into  the  soil,  loosened  by  stirring  at  this  season,  and 
fertilize,  while  they  crumble  and  decompose  it.  Walk  about,  then, 
and  listen  to  the  sermon  which  your  hungry  trees  preach. 


XIV. 


A  CHAPTER  ON  LAWNS. 

November,  1846. 

LANDSCAPE  GARDENING  embraces,  in  the  circle  of  its  per- 
fections, many  elements  of  beauty  ;  certainly  not  a  less  number 
titan  the  modern  chemists  count  as  the  simplest  conditions  of  mat- 
ter. But  with  something  of  the  feeling  of  the  old  philosophers,  who 
believed  that  earth,  air,  fire  and  water,  included  every  thing  in  na- 
ture, we  like  to  go  back  to  plain  and  simple  facts,  of  breadth  and 
importance  enough  to  embrace  a  multitude  of  little  details.  The 
great  elements  then,  of  landscape  gardening,  as  we  understand  it, 
are  trees  and  grass. 

Trees — delicate,  beautiful,  grand,  or  majestic  trees — pliantly 
answering  to  the  wooing  of  the  softest  west  wind,  like  the  willow  ; 
or  bravely  and  sturdily  defying  centuries  of  storm  and  tempest,  like 
the  oak — they  are  indeed  the  great  "  princes,  potentates,  and  peo- 
ple," of  our  realm  of  beauty.  But  it  is  not  to-day  that  we  are  per- 
mitted to  sing  triumphal  songs  in  their  praise. 

In  behalf  of  the  grass — the  turf,  the  lawn, — then,  we  ask  our 
readers  to  listen  to  us  for  a  short  time.  And  by  this  we  do  not 
mean  to  speak  of  it  in  a  moral  sense,  as  did  the  inspired  preacher 
of  old,  when  he  gravely  told  us  that  "ah  flesh  is  grass;"  or  in  a 
style  savoring  of  the  vanities  of  costume,  as  did  Prior,  when  he 
wrote  the  couplet, 

"Those  limbs  in  lawn  and  softest  silk  arrayed, 
From  sunbeams  guarded,  and  of  winds  afraid." 


182 


LANDSCAPE  GARDENING. 


Or  with  the  keen  relish  of  the  English  jockey,  whose  only  idea  of 
"  the  turf,"  is  that  of  the  place  nature  has  specially  provided  him 
upon  which  to  race  horses. 

Neither  do  we  look  upon  grass,  at  the  present  moment,  with  the 
eyes  of  our  friend  Tom  Thrifty,  the  fanner,  who  cuts  "  three  tons  to 
the  acre."  We  have,  in  our  present  mood,  no  patience  with  the  tall 
and  gigantic  fodder,  by  this  name,  that  grows  in  the  fertile  bottoms 
of  the  West,  so  tall  that  the  largest  Durham  is  lost  to  view  while 
walking  through  it. 

No — we  love  most  the  soft  turf  which,  beneath  the  flickering 
shadows  of  scattered  trees,  is  thrown  like  a  smooth  natural  carpet 
over  the  swelling  outline  of  the  smiling  earth.  Grass,  not  grown 
into  tall  meadows,  or  wild  bog  tussocks,  but  softened  and  refined  by 
the  frequent  touches  of  the  patient  mower,  till  at  last  it  becomes  a 
perfect  wonder  of  tufted  freshness  and  verdure.  Such  grass,  in 
short,  as  Shakspeare  had  in  his  mind,  when  he  said,  in  words  since 
echoed  ten  thousand  times, 

"  How  sweet  the  moonlight  sleeps  upon  that  bank ; " 

or  Ariosto,  in  his  Orlando — 

"  The  approaching  night,  not  knowing  where  to  pass, 
She  checks  her  reins,  and  on  the  velvet  grass, 
Beneath  the  umbrageous  trees,  her  form  she  throws, 
To  cheat  the  tedious  hours  with  brief  repose." 

In  short,  the  ideal  of  grass  is  a  lawn,  which  is,  to  a  meadow, 
what  "  Bishop's  lawn  "  is  to  homespun  Irish  linen. 

With  such  a  lawn,  and  large  and  massive  trees,  one  has  indeed 
the  most  enduring  sources  of  beauty  in  a  country  residence.  Per- 
petual neatness,  freshness  and  verdure  in  the  one ;  ever  expanding 
beauty,  variety  and  grandeur  in  the  other — what  more  does  a  rea- 
sonable man  desire  of  the  beautiful  about  him  in  the  country? 
Must  we  add  flowers,  exotic  plants,  fruits  ?  Perhaps  so,  but  they 
are  all,  in  an  ornamental  light,  secondaiy  to  trees  and  grass,  where 
these  can  be  had  in  perfection.  Only  one  other  grand  element  is 
needed  to  make  our  landscape  garden  complete — water.  A  river, 
or  a  lake,  in  which  the  skies  and  the  "  tufted  trees"  may  see  them- 


A  CHAPTER  ON  LAWNS. 


183 


selves  reflected,  is  ever  an  indispensable  feature  to  a  perfect  land- 
scape. 

How  to  obtain  a  fine  lawn,  is  a  question  which  has  no  doubt 
already  puzzled  many  of  our  readers.  They  have  thought,  perhaps, 
that  it  would  be  quite  sufficient  to  sow  with  grass  seeds,  or  lay  down 
neatly  with  sods,  any  plat  of  common  soil,  to  mow  it  occasionally, 
to  be  repaid  by  the  perpetual  softness  and  verdure  of  an  "  English 
lawn." 

They  have  found,  however,  after  a  patient  trial  in  several  seasons, 
that  an  American  summer,  so  bright  and  sunny  as  to  give  us,  in  our 
fruits,  almost  the  ripeness  and  prodigality  of  the  tropics,  does  not, 
like  that  of  Britain,  ever  moist  and  humid,  naturally  favor  the  con- 
dition of  fine  lawns. 

Beautiful  as  our  lawns  usually  are  in  May,  June,  September,  and 
October,  yet  in  July  and  August,  they  too  often  lose  that  freshness 
and  verdure  which  is  for  them  what  the  rose-bloom  of  youth  is  to  a 
beauty  of  seventeen — their  most  captivating  feature. 

There  are  not  wanting  admirers  of  fine  lawns,  who,  witnessing 
this  summer  searing,  have  pronounced  it  an  impossible  thing  to  pro- 
duce a  fine  lawn  in  this  country.  To  such  an  opinion  we  can  never 
subscribe — for  the  very  sufficient  reason  that  we  have  seen,  over  and 
over  again,  admirable  lawns  wherever  they  have  been  properly 
treated.  Fine  lawns  are  therefore  possible  in  aU  the  northern  half 
of  the  Union.  What  then  are  the  necessary  conditions  to  be  ob- 
served— what  the  preliminary  steps  to  be  taken  in  order  to  obtain 
them  ?  Let  us  answer  in  a  few  words — deep  soil,  the  proper  kinds 
of  grasses,  and  frequent  mowing. 

First  of  all,  for  us,  deep  soil.  In  a  moist  climate,  where  showers 
or  fogs  give  all  vegetable  nature  a  weekly  succession  of  baths,  one 
may  raise  a  pretty  bit  of  turf  on  a  bare  board,  with  half  an  inch  of 
soil.  But  here  it  does  not  require  much  observation  or  theory  to 
teach  us,  that  if  any  plant  is  to  maintain  its  verdure  through  a  long 
and  bright  summer,  with  alternate  periods  of  wet  and  drouth,  it 
must  have  a  deep  soil  in  which  to  extend  its  roots.  We  have  seen 
the  roots  of  common  clover,  in  trenched  soil,  which  had  descended 
to  the  depth  of  four  feet !  A  surface  drouth,  or  dry  weather,  had 
little  power  over  a  plant  whose  little  fibres  were  in  the  cool  moist 


184 


LANDSCAPE  GARDENING. 


understratum  of  that  depth.  And  a  lawn  which  is  well  established 
on  thoroughly  trenched  soil,  will  remain,  even  in  midsummer,  of 
a  fine  dark  verdure,  when  upon  the  same  soil  untrenched,  every 
little  period  of  dryness  would  give  a  brown  and  faded  look  to  the 
turf. 

The  most  essential  point  being  a  deep  soil,  we  need  not  say  that 
in  our  estimation,  any  person  about  to  lay  down  a  permanent  lawn, 
whether  of  fifty  acres  or  fifty  feet  square,  must  provide  himself 
against  failure  by  this  groundwork  of  success. 

Little  plats  of  ground  are  easily  trenched  with  the  spade. 
Large  lawn  surfaces  are  only  to  be  managed  (unless  expense  is  not 
a  consideration),  with  the  subsoil  plough.  "With  this  grand  de- 
veloper of  resources,  worked  by  two  yoke  of  oxen,  let  the  whole 
area  to  be  laid  down  be  thoroughly  moved  and  broken  up  two  feet 
deep.  The  autumn  or  early  winter  is  the  best  season  for  perform- 
ing this,  because  the  surface  will  have  ample  time  to  settle,  and 
take  a  proper  shape  before  spring. 

After  being  ploughed,  subsoiled  and  harrowed,  let  the  whole 
surface  be  entirely  cleared  of  even  the  smallest  stone.  It  is  quite 
impossible  to  mow  a  lawn  well  that  is  not  as  smooth  as  ground  can 
be  made.  Manure,  if  necessary,  should  be  applied  while  subsoil- 
ing.  We  say,  if  necessary,  for  if  the  land  is  strong  and  in  good 
heart,  it  is  not  needed.  The  object  in  a  lawn,  it  will  be  remem- 
bered, is  not  to  obtain  a  heavy  crop  of  hay,  but  simply  to  main- 
tain perpetual  verdure.  Rich  soil  would  defeat  our  object  by 
causing  a  rank  growth  and  coarse  stalks,  when  we  wish  a  short 
growth  and  soft  herbage.  Let  the  soil,  therefore,  be  good,  but  not 
rich ;  depth,  and  the  power  of  retaining  moisture,  are  the  truly 
needful  qualities  here.  If  the  land  is  very  light  and  sandy  (the 
worst  naturally),  we  would  advise  a  mixture  of  loam,  or  clay  ; 
which  indeed  subsoiling,  when  the  substratum  is  heavy,  will  often 
most  readily  effect. 

The  soil,  thus  prepared,  lies  all  winter  to  mellow  and  settle, 
with  the  kindly  influences  of  the  atmosphere  and  frost  upon  it. 

As  early  in  the  spring,  as  it  is  in  friable  working  condition,  stir 
it  lightly  with  the  plough  and  harrow,  and  make  the  surface  as 
smooth  as  possible-  -we  do  not  mean  level,  for  if  the  ground  is  not 


A  CHAPTER  ON  LAWNS. 


185 


a  flat,  nothing  is  so  agreeable  as  gentle  swells  or  undulations.  But 
quite  smooth  the  surface  must  be. 

Now  for  the  sowing ;  and  here  a  farmer  would  advise  you  to 
"  seed  down  with  oats,"  or  some  such  established  agricultural  pre- 
cept. Do  not  listen  to  him  for  a  moment !  "What  you  desire  is  a 
close  turf,  and  therefore  sow  nothing  but  grass  ;  and  do  not  suppose 
you  are  going  to  assist  a  weak  growing  plant  by  sowing  along 
with  it  a  coarser  growing  one  to  starve  it. 

Choose,  if  possible,  a  calm  day,  and  sow  your  seed  as  evenly  as 
you  can.  The  seed  to  be  sown  is  a  mixture  of  red-top  {Agostis 
vulgaris)  and  white  clover  {Trifolium  repens),  which  are  hardy 
short  grasses,  and  on  the  whole  make  the  best  and  most  enduring 
lawn  for  this  climate.*  The  proportion  should  be  about  three- 
fourths  red-top  to  one-fourth  white  clover.  The  seed  should  be 
perfectly  clean ;  then  sow  four  bushels  of  it  to  the  acre  ;  not  a  pint 
less  as  you  hope  to  walk  upon  velvet !  Finish  the  whole  by  rolling 
the  surface  evenly  and  neatly. 

A  few  soft  venial  showers,  and  bright  sunny  days,  will  show  you 
a  coat  of  verdure  bright  as  emerald.  By  the  first  of  June,  you  will 
find  it  necessary  to  look  about  for  your  mower. 

And  this  reminds  us  to  say  a  word  about  a  lawn  scythe.  You 
must  not  suppose,  as  many  ignorant  people  do,  that  a  lawn  can  be 
mown  with  a  brush  hook,  or  a  common  meadow  scythe  for  cutting 
hay  in  the  fastest  possible  manner.  It  can  only  be  done  with  a 
broad-bladed  scythe,  of  the  most  perfect  temper  and  quality,  which 
will  hold  an  edge  like  a  razor.  The  easiest  way  to  get  such  an 
article  is  to  inquire  at  any  of  the  agricultural  warehouses  in  the 
great  cities,  for  an  "  English  lawn  scythe."  "When  used,  it  should 
be  set  low,  so  as  to  be  level  with  the  plane  of  the  grass ;  when  the 
mower  is  erect,  he  will  mow  without  leaving  any  marks,  and  with 
the  least  possible  exertion. 

After  your  lawn  is  once  fairly  established,  there  are  but  two 
secrets  in  keeping  it  perfect — frequent  mowing  and  rolling.  With- 
out the  first,  it  will  soon  degenerate  into  a  coarse  meadow ;  the 

*  "We  learn  the  blue-grass  of  Kentucky  makes  a  fine  lawn  at  the  West , 
but  with  this  we  have  no  experience. 


186 


LANDSCAPE  GARDENING. 


latter  will  render  it  firmer,  closer,  shorter,  and  finer  every  time  it  is 
repeated. 

A  good  lawn  must  be  mown  every  ten  days  or  fortnight.  The 
latter  may  be  assumed  as  the  proper  average  time  in  this  climate. 
Ten  days  is  the  usual  hm.it  of  growth  for  the  best  kept  lawns  in 
England,  and  it  is  surprising  how  soon  a  coarse  and  wiry  bit  of 
sward  will  become  smooth  turf,  under  the  magic  influences  of 
regular  and  oft  repeated  mowing  and  rolling. 

Of  course,  a  lawn  can  only  be  cut  when  the  grass  is  damp,  and 
rolling  is  best  performed  directly  after  rain.  The  English  always 
roll  a  few  hours  before  using  the  scythe.  On  large  lawns,  a  donkey 
or  light  horse  may  be  advantageously  employed  in  performing  this 
operation. 

There  are  but  few  good  lawns  yet  in  America ;  but  we  have 
great  pleasure  in  observing  that  they  are  rapidly  multiplying. 
Though  it  may  seem  a  heavy  tax  to  some,  yet  no  expenditure  in 
ornamental  gardening  is,  to  our  mind,  productive  of  so  much  beau- 
ty as  that  incurred  in  producing  a  well-kept  lawn.  Without  this 
feature,  no  place,  however  great  its  architectural  beauties,  its  charms 
of  scenery,  or  its  collections  of  flowers  and  shrubs,  can  be  said  to 
deserve  consideration  in  point  of  landscape  gardening ;  and  with  it 
the  humble  cottage  grounds  will  possess -a  charm  which  is,  among 
pleasure-grounds,  what  a  refined  and  graceful  manner  is  in  society 
— a  universal  passport  to  admiration. 

There  are  two  residences  in  this  country  which  so  far  surpass  all 
others  hi  the  perfection  of  their  lawns,  that  we  hope  to  be  pardoned 
for  holding  them  up  to  commendation.  These  are  the  Upper 
Livingston  Manor,  the  seat  of  Mrs.  Mary  Livingston,  about 
seven  miles  from  Hudson,  N.  Y.,  and  the  Camac  Cottage,  near 
Philadelphia.* 

The  lawn  at  the  Livingston  Manor  is  very  extensive  and  park- 
like— certainly  the  largest  well-kept  lawn  in  America,  and  we  wish 
all  our  readers  who  are  skeptical  regarding  an  American  lawn, 
could  see  and  feel  its  many  excellent  perfections.    They  would  only 


*  See  Downing's  "Landscape  Gardening,"   pp.45,  58. 


A  CHAPTER  ON  LAWNS. 


181 


be  still  more  surprised  when  they  were  told  how  few  men  keep  so 
large  a  surface  in  the  highest  order. 

The  Camac  Cottage  is  a  gem  of  neatness  and  high  keeping. 
We  hope  Pennsylvanians  at  least,  who,  we  think,  have  perhaps  our 
best  lawn  climate,  will  not  fail  to  profit  by  so  admirable  an  example 
as  they  will  find  there,  of  what  Spenser  quaintly  and  prettily  calls 
K  the  grassie  ground? 


XV. 


ME.  TUDOR'S  GARDEN  AT  NAHANT. 

August,  184/7. 

FEW  miles  east  of  Boston,  boldly  jutting  into  the  Atlantic, 


lies  the  celebrated  promontory  of  Nahant.  Nature  has  made 
it  remarkable  for  the  grandeur  and  bleakness  of  its  position.  It  is 
a  headland  of  a  hundred  acres,  more  or  less,  sprinkled  with  a  light 
turf,  and  girded  about  with  bold  cliffs  of  rock,  against  which  the 
sea  dashes  with  infinite  grandeur  and  majesty.  No  tree  anciently 
deigned  to  raise  its  head  against  the  rude  breezes  that  blow  here  in 
winter,  as  if  tempest-driven  by  Boreas  himself ;  and  that,  even  in 
summer,  make  of  Nahant,  with  its  many  cottages  and  hotels,  a  re- 
frigerator, for  the  preservation  of  the  dissolving  souls  and  bodies  of 
the  exhausted  population  of  Boston,  in  the  months  of  July  and 
August. 

At  the  present  moment,  the  interesting  feature  at  Nahant,  after 
the  Ocean  itself,  is,  strange  to  say,  one  of  the  most  remarkable 
gardens  in  existence.  "We  mean  the  grounds  of  the  private  resi- 
dence of  Frederic  Tudor,  Esq.,  a  gentleman  well  known  in  the  foui 
quarters  of  the  world,  as  the  originator  of  the  present  successful 
mode  of  shipping  ice  to  the  most  distant  tropical  countries ;  and, 
we  may  here  add,  for  the  remarkable  manner  in  which  he  has  again 
triumphed  over  nature,  by  transforming  some  acres  of  her  bleakest 
and  most  sterile  soil  into  a  spot  of  luxuriant  verdure,  fruitfulness, 
and  beauty. 

To  appreciate  the  difficulties  with  which  this  gentleman  had  to 
contend,  or,  as  we  might  more  properly  say,  which  stimulated  all 


ME.  TUDOR's  GARDEN  AT  NAHANT. 


189 


his  efforts,  we  must  recall  to  mind  that,  frequently,  in  high  winds, 
the  salt  spray  drives  over  the  whole  of  Nahant ;  that,  until  Mr. 
Tudor  began  his  improvements,  not  even  a  bush  grew  naturally  on 
the  whole  of  its  area,  and  that  the  east  winds,  which  blow  from  the 
Atlantic  in  the  spring,  are  sufficient  to  render  all  gardening  possi- 
bilities in  the  usual  way  nearly  as  chimerical  as  cultivating  the  vol- 
canoes of  the  moon. 

Mr.  Tudor's  residence  there  now,  is  a  curious  and  striking  illus- 
tration of  the  triumph  of  art  over  nature,  and  as  it  involves  some 
points  that  we  think  most  instructive  to  horticulturists,  we  trust  he 
will  pardon  us  for  drawing  the  attention  of  our  readers  to  it  at  the 
present  time.  Our  first  visit  to  his  grounds  was  made  in  July,  1845, 
one  of  the  driest  and  most  unfavorable  seasons  for  the  growth  of 
trees  and  plants  that  we  remember.  But  at  that  time,  perhaps  the 
best  possible  one  to  test  the  merits  of  the  mode  of  cultivation 
adopted,  we  found  Mr.  Tudor's  garden  in  a  more  flourishing  condi- 
tion than  any  one  of  the  celebrated  places  about  Boston.  The 
average  growth  of  the  thriftiest  standard  fruit-trees  about  Boston, 
at  that  time,  was  little  more  than  six  inches  to  a  foot.  In  this  Na- 
hant  garden  it  was  two  feet,  and  we  measured  shoots  on  some  of 
the  standard  trees  three  feet  in  length.  By  far  the  largest  and  finest 
cherries  we  tasted  that  season,  were  from  trees  growing  there ;  and 
there  was  an  apparent  health  and  vigor  about  every  species  within 
its  boundary,  which  would  have  been  creditable  any  where,  but 
which  at  Nahant,  and  in  a  season  so  unfavorable,  quite  astonished  us. 

The  two  strong  points  in  this  gentleman's  gardening  operations 
at  Nahant,  appear  to  us  to  be  the  following  :  First,  the  employment 
of  screens  to  break  the  force  of  the  wind,  producing  thereby  an  ar- 
tificial climate ;  and  second,  the  thorough  preparation  of  the  soil  by 
trenching  and  manuring. 

Of  course,  even  the  idea  of  a  place  worthy  of  the  name  of  a 
garden  in  this  bald,  sea-girt  cape,  was  out  of  the  question,  unless 
some  mode  of  overcoming  the  violence  of  the  gales,  and  the  bad 
effects  of  the  salt  spray,  could  be  devised.  The  plan  Mr.  Tudor  has 
adopted  is,  we  believe,  original  with  him,  and  is  at  once  extremely 
simple,  and  perfectly  effective. 

It  consists  merely  of  two,  or  at  most  three,  parallel  rows  of  high 


190 


LANDSCAPE  GARDENING. 


open  fences,  made  of  rough  slats  or  palings,  nailed  in  the  common 
vertical  manner,  about  three  inches  wide,  and  a  space  of  a  couple 
of  inches  left  between  them.  These  paling  fences  are  about  sixteen 
feet  high,  and  usually  form  a  double  row  (on  the  most  exposed  side 
a  triple  row),  round  the  whole  garden.  The  distance  between  that 
on  the  outer  boundary  and  the  next  interior  one  is  about  four  feet. 
The  garden  is  also  intersected  here  and  there  by  tall  trellis  fences 
of  the  same  kind,  all  of  which  help  to  increase  the  shelter,  while 
some  of  those  in  the  interior  serve  as  frames  for  training  trees 
upon. 

The  effect  of  this  double  or  triple  barrier  of  high  paling  is  mar- 
vellous. Although  like  a  common  paling,  apparently  open  and  per- 
mitting the  wind  free  passage,  yet  in  practice  it  is  found  entirely 
to  rob  the  gales  of  their  violence,  and  their  saltness.  To  use  Mr. 
Tudor's  words,  "  it  completely  ,  sifts  the  air."  After  great  storms, 
when  the  outer  barrier  will  be  found  covered  with  a  coating  of  salt, 
the  foliage  in  the  garden  is  entirely  uninjured.  It  acts,  in  short, 
like  a  rustic  veil,  that  admits  just  so  much  of  the  ah,  and  in  such  a 
manner  as  most  to  promote  the  growth  of  the  trees,  while  it  breaks 
and  wards  off  all  the  deleterious  influences  of  a  genuine  ocean 
breeze — so  pernicious  to  tender  leaves  and  shoots. 

Again,  regarding  the  luxuriant  growth,  which  surprised  us  in  a 
place  naturally  a  sterile  gravel,  we  were  greatly  struck  with  the  ad- 
ditional argument  which  it  furnished  us  with  in  support  of  our  fa- 
vorite theory  of  the  value  of  trenching  in  this  climate.  Mr.  Tudor 
has,  at  incredible  labor,  trenched  and  manured  the  soil  of  his  garden 
three  feet  deep.  The  consequence  of  this  is,  that,  although  it  is 
mainly  of  a  light,  porous  texture,  yet  the  depth  to  which  it  has  been 
stirred  and  cultivated,  renders  it  proof  against  the  effects  of  drouth. 
In  the  hottest  and  driest  seasons,  the  growth  here  is  luxuriant,  and 
no  better  proof  can  be  desired  of  the  great  value  of  thoroughly 
trenching,  as  the  first  and  indispensable  foundation  of  all  good  cul- 
ture, even  in  thin  and  poor  soils. 

It  is  worthy  of  record,  among  the  results  of  Mr.  Tudor's  culture, 
that,  two  years  after  the  principal  plantation  of  his  fruit-trees  was 
made,  he  carried  off  the  second  prize  for  pears,  at  the  annual  exhi- 
bition of  the  Massachusetts  Horticultural  Society,  among  dozens  of 


MR.  TUDOR'S  GARDEN  AT  N  AH  ANT. 


191 


zealous  competitors,  and  with  the  fruit  most  carefully  grown  in  that 
vicinity. 

We  have  observed  also,  and  noted  as  indicative  of  no  small  de- 
gree of  practical  skill,  that  in  various  quarters  of  the  garden  are 
standard  trees,  apples  and  pears  especially,  that  have  been  trans- 
planted from  Boston,  with  large  heads  and  trunks,  six  or  eight  inches 
in  diameter,  and  are  now  in  a  state  of  complete  luxuriance  and 
frmtfulness. 

There  are,  of  course,  but  few  individuals  who  have  the  desire 
and  the  means  thus  to  weave  a  spell  of  freshness  and  beauty  over  a 
spot  which  nature  has  created  so  stern  and  bald ;  perhaps  there  are 
still  fewer  who  would  have  the  courage  to  plan  and  carry  out  im- 
provements of  this  kind,  to  the  attainment  of  so  beautiful  a  result, 
in  the  very  teeth  of  the  elements.  But  there  are  many  who  may 
learn  something  valuable  from  Mr.  Tudor's  labor  in  the  cause  of 
Horticulture.  There  are,  for  example,  hundreds  along  the  sea-coasts, 
to  whom  gardening  of  any  sort  is  nearly  impossible,  from  the  inju- 
rious effects  of  breezes  loaded  with  salt  water.  There  are,  again, 
many  beautiful  sites  that  we  could  name  on  the  shores  of  some  of 
our  great  inland  lakes,  and  the  number  is  every  day  increasing,  sites 
where  the  soil  is  deep  and  excellent,  and  the  skies  warm  and  bright, 
but  the  violence  of  the  vernal  and  autumnal  winds  is  su«h,  that  the 
better  culture  of  the  orchard  and  garden  makes  little  progress. 

In  all  such  sites,  Mr.  Tudor's  Nahant  screens  for  sifting  the  air, 
will  at  once  obviate  all  the  difficulty,  temper  the  wind  to  the  tender 
buds,  and  make  for  the  spot  a  soft  climate  in  a  naturally  harsh  and 
bleak  aspect. 


XVI. 


A  VISIT  TO  MONTGOMERY  PLACE. 

October,  184*7. 

THERE  are  few  persons,  among  what  may  be  called  the  travelling 
class,  who  know  the  beauty  of  the  finest  American  country- 
seats.  Many  are  ignorant  of  the  very  existence  of  those  rural  gems 
that  embroider  the  landscapes  here  and  there,  in  the  older  and 
wealthier  parts  of  the  country.  Held  in  the  retirement  of  private 
life,  they  are  rarely  visited,  except  by  those  who  enjoy  the  friend- 
ship of  their  possessors.  The  annual  tourist  by  the  railroad  and 
steamboat,  who  moves  through  wood  and  meadow  and  river  and 
hill,  with  the  celerity  of  a  rocket,  and  then  fancies  he  knows  the 
country,  is  in  a  state  of  total  ignorance  of  their  many  attractions ; 
and  those  whose  taste  has  not  led  them  to  seek  this  species  of  plea- 
sure, are  equally  unconscious  of  the  landscape-gardening  beauties 
that  are  developing  themselves  every  day,  with  the  advancing  pros- 
perity of  the  country. 

It  has  been  our  good  fortune  to  know  a  great  number  of  the 
finest  of  these  dehghtful  residences,  to  revel  in  their  beauties,  and 
occasionally  to  chronicle  their  charms.  If  we  have  not  sooner 
spoken  at  large  of  Montgomery  Place,  second  as  it  is  to  no  seat  in 
America,  for  its  combination  of  attractions,  it  has  been  rather  that 
we  were  silent — like  a  devout  gazer  at  the  marvellous  beauty  of 
the  Apollo — from  excess  of  enjoyment,  than  from  not  deeply 
feeling  all  its  varied  mysteries  of  pleasure-grounds  and  lawns,  wood 
and  water. 

Montgomery  Place  is  one  of  the  superb  old  seats  belonging  to 


A  VISIT  TO  MONTGOMERY  PLACE. 


193 


the  Livingston  family,  and  situated  in  that  part  of  Dutchess  county 
bordering  on  the  Hudson.  About  one  hundred  miles  from  New- 
York,  the  swift  river  steamers  reach  this  part  of  the  river  in  six 
hours ;  and  the  guest,  who  leaves  the  noisy  din  of  the  town  in  the 
early  morning,  finds  himself,  at  a  little  past  noon,  plunged  amid  all 
the  seclusion  and  quiet  of  its  leafy  groves. 

And  this  accessible  perfect  seclusion  is,  perhaps,  one  of  the  most 
captivating  features  in  the  life  of  the  country  gentleman,  whose  lot 
is  cast  on  this  part  of  the. Hudson.  For  twenty  miles  here,  on  the 
eastern  shore,  the  banks  are  nearly  a  continuous  succession  of  fine 
seats.  The  landings  are  by  no  means  towns,  or  large  villages, 
with  the  busy  air  of  trade,  but  quiet  stopping  places,  serving  the 
convenience  of  the  neighboring  residents.  Surrounded  by  exten- 
sive pleasure-grounds,  fine  woods  or  parks,  even  the  adjoining 
estates  are  often  concealed  from  that  part  of  the  grounds  around  the 
house,  and  but  for  the  broad  Hudson,  which  forms  the  grand  feature 
in  all  these  varied  landscapes — the  Hudson  always  so  full  of  life  in 
its  numberless  bright  sails  and  steamers — one  might  fancy  himself  a 
thousand  miles  from  all  crowded  and  busy  haunts  of  men. 

Around  Montgomery  Place,  indeed,  this  air  of  quiet  and  seclu- 
sion lurks  more  bewitchingly  than  in  any  other  seat  whose  hospitality 
we  have  enjoyed.  Whether  the  charm  lies  in  the  deep  and  mysterious 
wood,  full  of  the  echo  of  water-spirits,  that  forms  the  Northern 
boundary,  or  whether  it  grows  out  of  a  profound  feeling  of  com- 
pleteness and  perfection  in  foregrounds  of  old  trees,  and  distances  of 
calm  serene  mountains,  we  have  not  been  able  to  divine ;  but  cer- 
tain it  is  that  there  is  a  spell  in  the  very  air,  which  is  fatal  to  the 
energies  of  a  great  speculation.  It  is  not,  we  are  sure,  the  spot  for 
a  man  to  plan  campaigns  of  conquest,  and  we  doubt  even  whether 
the  scholar,  whose  ambition  it  is 

"  To  scorn  delights, 
And  live  laborious  days," 

would  not  find  something  in  the  air  of  this  demesne,  so  soothing  aa 
to  dampen  the  fire  of  his  great  purposes,  and  dispose  him  to  believe 
that  there  is  more  dignity  in  repose,  than  merit  in  action. 

There  is  not  wanting  something  of  the  charm  of  historical  asso- 
13 


194 


LANDSCAPE  GARDENING. 


ciation  here.  The  estate  derives  its  name  from  Gen.  Montgomery,  the 
hero  and  martyr  of  Quebec  (whose  portrait,  among  other  fine  family 
pictures,  adorns  the  walls  of  the  mansion).  Mrs.  Montgomery,  after 
his  lamented  death  on  the  heights  of  Abraham,  resided  here  during 
the  remainder  of  her  life.  At  her  death,  she  bequeathed  it  to  her 
brother,  the  Hon.  Edward  Livingston,  our  late  Minister  to  France. 
Here  this  distinguished  diplomatist  and  jurist  passed,  in  elegant 
retirement,  the  leisure  intervals  of  a  life  largely  devoted  to  the  service 
of  the  State,  and  here  still  reside  his  family,  whose  greatest  pleasure 
seems  to  be  to  add,  if  possible,  every  year,  some  admirable  im- 
provement, or  elicit  some  new  charm  of  its  extraordinary  natural 
beauty. 

The  age  of  Montgomery  Place  heightens  its  interest  in  no  ordi- 
nary degree.  Its  richness  of  foliage,  both  in  natural  wood  and 
planted  trees,  is  one  of  its  marked  features.  Indeed,  so  great  is  the 
variety  and  intricacy  of  scenery,  caused  by  the  leafy  woods,  thickets 
and  bosquets,  that  one  may  pass  days  and  even  weeks  here,  and  not 
thoroughly  explore  all  its  fine  points — 

"  Milles  arbres,  de  ces  lieux  ondoyante  parure 
Charme  de  l'odorat,  de  gout  et  des  regards, 
Elegamment  groupes,  negligeninient  epars, 
Se  fuyaient,  s'approchaient,  quelquefois  a  la  vue 
Ouvraient  dans  la  lointain  im  scene  imprevue ; 
Ou,  tombant  jusqu'a  terre,  et  reeourbant  leurs  bras 
Venaient  d'un  doux  obstacle  embarrasser  leurs  pas 
Ou  pendaient  sur  leur  tete  en  festons  de  verdure, 
Et  de  fleurs,  en  passant,  semaient  leur  chevelure. 
Dirai-je  ces  forets  d'arbustes,  d'arbrisseaux, 
Entrelacant  en  voute,  en  alcove,  en  berceaux, 
Leurs  bras  voluptueux,  et  leurs  tiges  fleuries  ?" 

About  four  hundred  acres  comprise  the  estate  called  Mont- 
gomery Place,  a  very  large  part  of  which  is  devoted  to  pleasure- 
grounds  and  ornamental  purposes.  The  ever-varied  surface  affords 
the  finest  scope  for  the  numerous  roads,  drives,  and  walks,  with 
which  it  abounds.  Even  its  natural  boundaries  are  admirable. 
On  the  west  is  the  Hudson,  broken  by  islands  into  an  outline  un- 
usually varied  and  picturesque.    On  the  north,  it  is  separated  from 


A  VISIT  TO  MONTGOMERY  PLACE. 


195 


Blithe  wood,  the  adjoining  seat,  by  a  wooded  valley,  in  the  depths  of 
which  runs  a  broad  stream,  rich  in  waterfalls.  On  the  south  is  a 
rich  oak  wood,  in  the  centre  of  which  is  a  private  drive.  On  the 
east  it  touches  the  post  road.  Here  is  the  entrance  gate,  and  from 
it  leads  a  long  and  stately  avenue  of  trees,  like  the  approach  to  an 
old  French  chateau.  Half-way  up  its  length,  the  lines  of  planted  trees 
give  place  to  a  tall  wood,  and  this  again  is  succeeded  by  the  lawn, 
which  opens  in  all  its  stately  dignity,  with  increased  effect  after  the 
deeper  shadows  of  this  vestibule-like  wood.  The  eye  is  now  caught 
at  once  by  the  fine  specimens  of  hemlock,  lime,  ash  and  fir, 
whose  proud  heads  and  large  trunks  form  the  finest  possible  acces- 
sories to  a  large  and  spacious  mansion,  which  is  one  of  the  best 
specimens  of  our  manor  houses.  Built  many  years  ago,  in  the  most 
substantial  manner,  the  edifice  has  been  retouched  and  somewhat 
enlarged  within  a  few  years,  and  is  at  present  both  commodious,  and 
architectural  in  character. 

Without  going  into  any  details  of  the  interior,  we  may  call  at- 
tention to  the  unique  effect  of  the  pavilion,  thirty  feet  wide,  which 
forms  the  north  wing  of  this  house.  It  opens  from  the  library  and 
drawing-room  by  low  windows.  Its  ribbed  roof  is  supported  by  a 
tasteful  series  of  columns  and  arches,  in  the  style  of  an  Italian  ar- 
cade. As  it  is  on  the  north  side  of  the  dwelling,  its  position  is  al- 
ways cool  in  summer ;  and  this  coolness  is  still  further  increased  by 
the  abundant  shaie  of  tall  old  trees,  whose  heads  cast  a  pleasant 
gloom,  while  their  tall  trunks  allow  the  eye  to  feast  on  the  rich 
landscape  spread  around  it.* 

To  attempt  to  describe  the  scenery,  which  bewitches  the  eye,  as 
it  wanders  over  the  wide  expanse  to  the  west  from  this  pavilion, 
would  be  but  an  idle  effort  to  make  words  express  what  even  the 
pencil  of  the  painter  often  fails  to  copy.  As  a  foreground,  imagine 
a  large  lawn  waving  in  undulations  of  soft  verdure,  varied  with  fine 
groups,  and  margined  with  rich  belts  of  foliage.  Its  base  is  washed 
by  the  river,  which  is  here  a  broad  sheet  of  water,  lying  like  a  long 
lake  beneath  the  eye.  Wooded  banks  stretch  along  its  margin.  Its 
bosom  is  studded  with  islands,  which  are  set  like  emeralds  on  its 

*  See  Downing's  "  Landscape  Gardening,"  p.  4/7. 


196 


LANDSCAPE  GARDENING-. 


pale  blue  bosom.  On  the  opposite  shores,  more  than  a  mile  distant, 
is  seen  a  rich  mingling  of  woods  and  corn-fields.  But  the  crowning 
glory  of  the  landscape  is  the  background  of  mountains.  The  Kaat- 
skills,  as  seen  from  this  part  of  the  Hudson,  are,  it  seems  to  us,  more 
beautiful  than  any  mountain  scenery  in  the  middle  States.  It  is  not 
merely  that  their  outline  is  bold,  and  that  the  summit  of  Roundtop, 
rising  three  thousand  feet  above  the  surrounding  country,  gives  an 
air  of  more  grandeur  than  is  usually  seen,  even  in  the  Highlands ; 
but  it  is  the  color  which  renders  the  KaatsMlls  so  captivating  a 
feature  in  the  landscape  here.  Never  harsh  or  cold,  like  some  of  our 
finest  hills,  Nature  seems  to  delight  in  casting  a  veil  of  the  softest 
azure  over  these  mountains — immortalized  by  the  historian  of  Rip 
Van  Winkle.  Morning  and  noon,  the  shade  only  varies  from  softer 
to  deeper  blue.  But  the  hour  of  sunset  is  the  magical  time  for  the 
fantasies  of  the  color-genii  of  these  mountains.  Seen  at  this  period, 
from  the  terrace  of  the  pavilion  of  Montgomery  Place,  the  eye  is 
filled  with  wonder  at  the  various  dyes  that  bathe  the  receding  hills 
— the  most  distant  of  which  are  twenty  or  thirty  miles  away.  Azure, 
purple,  violet,  pale  grayish-lilac,  and  the  dim  hazy  hue  of  the  most 
distant  cloud-rift,  are  all  seen  distinct,  yet  blending  magically  into 
each  other  in  these  receding  hills.  It  is  a  spectacle  of  rare  beauty, 
and  he  who  loves  tones  of  color,  soft  and  dreamy  as  one  of  the 
mystical  airs  of  a  German  maestro,  should  see  the  sunset  fade  into 
twilight  from  the  seats  on  this  part  of  the  Hudson. 

THE  MORNING  WALK. 

Leaving  the  terrace  on  the  western  front,  the  steps  of  the  visitor, 
exploring  Montgomery  Place,  are  naturally  directed  towards  the 
river  bank.  A  path  on  the  left  of  the  broad  lawn  leads  one  to  the 
fanciful  rustic-gabled  seat,  among  a  growth  of  locusts  at  the  bottom 
of  the  slope.  Here  commences  a  long  walk,  which  is  the  favorite 
morning  ramble  of  guests.  Deeply  shaded,  winding  along  the 
thickly  wooded  bank,  with  the  refreshing  sound  of  the  tide- waves 
gently  dashing  against  the  rocky  shores  below,  or  expending  them- 
selves on  the  beach  of  gravel,  it  curves  along  the  bank  for  a  great 
distance.  Sometimes  overhanging  cliff's,  crested  with  pines,  frown 
darkly  over  it ;  sometimes  thick  tufts  of  fern  and  mossy-carpeted 


A  VISIT  TO  MONTGOMERY  PLACE. 


197 


rocks  border  it,  while  at  various  points,  vistas  or  long  reaches  of  the 
beautiful  river  scenery  burst  upon  the  eye.  Half-way  along  this 
morning  ramble,  a  rustic  seat,  placed  on  a  bold  little  plateau,  at  the 
base  of  a  large  tree,  eighty  feet  above  the  water,  and  fenced  about 
with  a  rustic  barrier,  invites  you  to  linger  and  gaze  at  the  fascinat- 
ing river  landscape  here  presented.  It  embraces  the  distant  moun- 
tains, a  sylvan  foreground,  and  the  broad  river  stretching  away  for 
miles,  sprinkled  with  white  sails.  The  coup-cCoeil  is  heightened 
by  its  being  seen  through  a  dark  framework  of  thick  leaves  and 
branches,  which  open  here  just  sufficiently  to  show  as  much  as  the 
eye  can  enjoy  or  revel  in,  without  change  of  position. 

A  little  farther  on,  we  reach  a  flight  of  stony  steps,  leading  up 
to  the  border  of  the  lawn.  At  the  top  of  these  is  a  rustic  seat  with 
a  thatched  canopy,  curiously  built  round  the  trunk  of  an  aged  tree. 

Passing  these  steps,  the  morning  walk  begins  to  descend  more 
rapidly  toward  the  river.  At  the  distance  of  some  hundred  yards, 
we  found  ourselves  on  the  river  shore,  and  on  a  pretty  jutting  point 
of  land  stands  a  little  rustic  pavilion,  from  which  a  much  lower 
and  wider  view  of  the  landscape  is  again  enjoyed.  Here  you  find  a 
boat  ready  for  an  excursion,  if  the  spirit  leads  you  to  reverse  the 
scenery,  and  behold  the  leafy  banks  from  the  water. 

THE  WILDERNESS. 

Leaving  the  morning  walk,  we  enter  at  once  into  "  The  "Wilder- 
ness." This  is  a  large  and  long  wooded  valley.  It  is  broad,  and 
much  varied  in  surface,  swelling  into  deep  ravines,  and  spreading 
into  wide  hollows.  In  its  lowest  depths  runs  a  large  stream  of  water, 
that  has-,  in  portions,  all  the  volume  and  swiftness  of  a  mountain  tor- 
rent. But  the  peculiarity  of  "  The  Wilderness,"  is  in  the  depth  and 
massiveness  of  its  foliage.  It  is  covered  with  the  native  growth  of 
trees,  thick,  dark  and  shadowy,  so  that  once  plunged  in  its  recesses, 
you  can  easily  imagine  yourself  in  the  depths  of  an  old  forest,  far 
away  from  the  haunts  of  civilization.  Here  and  there,  rich  thickets 
of  the  kalmia  or  native  laurel  clothe  the  surface  of  the  ground,  and 
form  the  richest  underwood. 

But  the  wilderness  is  by  no  means  savage  in  the  aspect  of  its 
beauty;  on  the  contrary,  here  as  elsewhere  in  this  demesne,  are  evi- 


198 


LANDSCAPE  GARDENING-. 


dences,  in  every  improvement,  of  a  fine  appreciation  of  the  natural 
charms  of  the  locality.  The  whole  of  this  richly  wooded  valley  is 
threaded  with  walks,  ingeniously  and  naturally  conducted  so  as  to 
penetrate  to  all  the  most  interesting  points  ;  while  a  great  variety  of 
rustic  seats,  formed  beneath  the  trees,  in  deep  secluded  thickets,  by 
the  side  of  the  swift  rushing  stream,  or  on  some  inviting  eminence, 
enables  one  fully  to  enjoy  them. 

There  are  a  couple  of  miles  of  these  walks,  and  from  the  depth 
and  thickness  of  the  wood,  and  the  varied  surface  of  the  ground, 
their  intricacy  is  such  that  only  the  family,  or  those  very  familiar 
with  their  course,  are  at  all  able  to  follow  them  aU  with  any  thing 
like  positive  certainty  as  to  their  destination.  Though  we  have 
threaded  them  several  seasons,  yet  our  late  visit  to  Montgomeiy 
Place  found  us  giving  ourselves  up  to  the  pleasing  perplexity  of 
choosing  one  at  random,  and  trusting  to  a  lucky  guess  to  bring  us 
out  of  the  wood  at  the  desired  point. 

Not  long  after  leaving  the  rustic  pavilion*  on  descending  by 
one  of  the  paths  that  diverges  to  the  left,  we  reach  a  charming  little 
covered  resting-place,  in  the  form  of  a  rustic  porch.  The  roof  is 
prettily  thatched  with  thick  green  moss.  Nestling  under  a  dark 
canopy  of  evergreens  in  the  shelter  of  a  rocky  fern-covered  bank, 
an  horn*  or  two  may  be  whiled  away  within  it,  almost  unconscious 
of  the  passage  of  time. 

THE  CATARACT. 

But  the  stranger  who  enters  the  depths  of  this  dusky  wood  by 
this  route,  is  not  long  inclined  to  remain  here.  His  imagination  is 
excited  by  the  not  very  distant  sound  of  waterfalls. 

"  Above,  below,  aerial  murmurs  swell, 
From  hanging  wood,  brown heatb  and  bushy  dell; 
A  thousand  gushing  rills  that  shun  the  light, 
Stealing  like  music  on  the  ear  of  night." 

He  takes  another  path,  passes  by  an  airy-looking  rustic  bridge,  and 
plunging  for  a  moment  into  the  thicket,  emerges  again  in  full  view 

*  See  Downing's  "Landscape  Gardening,"  p.  48. 


A  VISIT  TO  MONTGOMERY  PLACE. 


199 


of  the  first  cataract.  Coming  from  the  solemn  depths  of  the  wood, 
he  is  astonished  at  the  noise  and  volume  of  the  stream,  which  here 
rushes  in  wild  foam  and  confusion  over  a  rocky  fall,  forty  feet  in 
depth.  Ascending  a  flight  of  steps  made  in  the  precipitous  banks 
of  the  stream,  we  have  another  view,  which  is  scarcely  less  spirited 
and  picturesque. 

This  waterfall,  beautiful  at  all  seasons,  would  alone  be  considered 
a  sufficient  attraction  to  give  notoriety  to  a  rural  locality  in  most 
country  neighborhoods.  But  as  if  Nature  had  intended  to  lavish 
her  gifts  here,  she  has,  in  the  course  of  this  valley,  given  two  other 
cataracts.  These  are  all  striking  enough  to  be  worthy  of  the  pencil 
of  the  artist,  and  they  make  this  valley  a  feast  of  wonders  to  the 
lovers  of  the  picturesque. 

There  is  a  secret  charm  which  binds  us  to  these  haunts  of  the 
water  spirits.  The  spot  is  filled  with  the  music  of  the  falling  water. 
Its  echoes  pervade  the  air,  and  beget  a  kind  of  dreamy  revery.  The 
memory  of  the  world's  toil  gradually  becomes  fainter  and  fainter, 
under  the  spell  of  the  soothing  monotone  ;  until  at  last  one  begins 
to  doubt  the  existence  of  towns  and  cities,  full  of  busy  fellow-beings, 
and  to  fancy  the  true  happiness  of  life  lies  in  a  more  simple  exist- 
ence, where  man,  the  dreamy  silence  of  thick  forests,  the  lulling 
tones  of  babbling  brooks,  and  the  whole  heart  of  nature,  make  one 
sensation,  full  of  quiet  harmony  and  joy. 

THE  LAKE. 

That  shadowy  path,  that  steals  away  so  enticingly  from  the 
neighborhood  of  the  cataract,  leads  to  a  spot  of  equal,  though  a  dif- 
ferent kind  of  loveliness.  Leaving  the  border  of  the  stream,  and 
following  it  past  one  or  two  distracting  points,  where  other  paths, 
starting  out  at  various  angles,  seem  provokingly  to  tempt  one  away 
from  the  neighborhood  of  the  water,  we  suddenly  behold,  with  a 
feeling  of  delight,  the  lake.* 

Nothing  can  have  a  more  charming  effect  than  this  natural 
mirror  in  the  bosom  of  the  valley.  It  is  a  fine  expansion  of  the 
same  stream,  which  farther  down  forms  the  large  cataract.  Here 

*See  Downing's  "Landscape  Gardening,"  p.  49. 


200 


LANDSCAPE  GARDENING. 


it  sleeps,  as  lazily  and  glassily  as  if  quite  incapable  of  aught  but  re- 
flecting the  beauty  of  tbe  blue  sky,  and  tbe  snowy  clouds,  that  float 
over  it.  On  two  sides,  it  is  overhung  and  deeply  shaded  by  the 
bowery  thickets  of  the  surrounding  wilderness ;  on  the  third  is  a 
peninsula,  fringed  with  the  graceful  willow,  and  rendered  more  at- 
tractive by  a  rustic  temple  ;  while  the  fourth  side  is  more  sunny 
and  open,  and  permits  a  peep  at  the  distant  azure  mountain  tops. 

This  part  of  the  grounds  is  seen  at  the  most  advantage,  either 
towards  evening,  or  in  moonlight.  Then  the  effect  of  contrast  in  light 
and  shadow  is  most  striking,  and  the  seclusion  and  beauty  of  the 
spot  are  more  fully  enjoyed  than  at  any  other  hour.  Then  you  will 
most  certainly  be  temj>ted  to  leave  the  curious  rustic  seat,  with  its 
roof  wrapped  round  with  a  rude  entablature  like  Pluto's  crown ; 
and  you  will  take  a  seat  in  Psyche's  boat,  on  whose  prow  is  poised 
a  giant  butterfly,  that  looks  so  mysteriously  down  into  the  depths 
below  as  to  impress  you  with  a  belief  that  it  is  the  metempsychosis 
of  the  spirit  of  the  place,  guarding  against  all  unhallowed  violation 
of  its  purity  and  solitude. 

The  peninsula,  on  the  north  of  the  lake,  is  carpeted  with  the  dry 
leaves  of  the  thick  cedars  that  cover  it,  and  form  so  umbrageous  a 
resting-place  that  the  sky  over  it  seems  absolutely  dusky  at  noon- 
day. On  its  northern  bank  is  a  rude  sofa,  formed  entirely  of  stone. 
Here  you  linger  again,  to  wonder  afresh  at  the  novelty  and  beauty 
of  the  second  cascade.  The  stream  here  emerges  from  a  dark  thick- 
et, falls  about  twenty  feet,  and  then  rushes  away  on  the  side  of  the 
peninsula  opposite  the  lake.  Although  only  separated  by  a  short 
walk  and  the  mass  of  cedars  on  the  promontory,  from  the  lake  itself, 
yet  one  cannot  be  seen  from  the  other ;  and  the  lake,  so  full  of  the 
very  spirit  of  repose,  is  a  perfect  opposite  to  this  foaming,  noisy  little 
waterfall. 

Farther  up  the  stream  is  another  cascade,  but  leaving  that  for 
the  present,  let  us  now  select  a  path  leading,  as  near  as  we  can 
judge,  in  the  direction  of  the  open  pleasure-grounds  near  the  house. 
Winding  along  the  sides  of  the  valley,  and  stretching  for  a  good 
distance  across  its  broadest  part,  all  the  while  so  deeply  immersed, 
however,  in  its  umbrageous  shelter,  as  scarcely  to  see  the  sun,  or  in- 


A  VISIT  TO  MONTGOMERY  PLACE. 


201 


deed  to  feel  very  certain  of  our  whereabouts,  we  emerge  in  the  neigh- 
borhood of  the  Conservatory.* 

This  is  a  large,  isolated,  glazed  structure,  designed  by  Mr.  Cath- 
erwood,  to  add  to  the  scenic  effect  of  the  pleasure-grounds.  On  its 
northern  side  are,  in  summer,  arranged  the  more  delicate  green- 
house plants ;  and  in  front  are  groups  of  large  oranges,  lemons, 
citrons,  Cape  jasmines,  eugenias,  etc.,  in  tubs — plants  remarkable 
for  their  size  and  beauty.  Passing  under  neat  and  tasteful  archways 
of  wirework,  covered  with  rare  climbers,  we  enter  what  is  properly 

THE  FLOWER-GARDEN. 

How  different  a  scene  from  the  deep  sequestered  shadows  of  the 
Wilderness !  Here  all  is  gay  and  smiling.  Bright  parterres  of 
brilliant  flowers  bask  in  the  full  daylight,  and  rich  masses  of  color 
seem  to  revel  in  the  sunshine.  The  walks  are  fancifully  laid  out,  so 
as  to  form  a  tasteful  whole ;  the  beds  are  surrounded  by  low  edgings 
of  turf  or  box,  and  the  whole  looks  like  some  rich  oriental  pattern  or 
carpet  of  embroidery.  In  the  centre  of  the  garden  stands  a  large 
vase  of  the  Warwick  pattern ;  others  occupy  the  centres  of  parterres 
in  the  midst  of  its  two  main  divisions,  and  at  either  end  is  a  fanciful 
light  summer-house,  or  pavilion,  of  Moresque  character.  The  whole 
garden  is  surrounded  and  shut  out  from  the  lawn,  by  a  belt  of 
shrubbery,  and  above  and  behind  this,  rises,  like  a  noble  framework, 
the  background  of  trees  of  the  lawn  and  the  Wilderness.  If  there 
is  any  prettier  flower-garden  scene  than  this  ensemble  in  the  country, 
we  have  not  yet  had  the  good  fortune  to  behold  it. 

It  must  be  an  industrious  sight-seer  who  could  accomplish  more 
than  we  have  here  indicated  of  the  beauties  of  this  residence,  in  a 
day.  Indeed  there  is  enough  of  exercise  for  the  body,  and  enjoy- 
ment for  the  senses  in  it,  for  a  week.  But  another  morning  may  be 
most  agreeably  passed  in  a  portion  of  the  estate  quite  apart  from 
that  which  has  met  the  eye  from  any  point  yet  examined.    This  is 

THE  DRIVE. 

On  the  southern  boundary  is  an  oak  wood  of  about  fifty  acres. 
*  See  Downing's  "Landscape  Gardening,"  p.  453. 


202 


LANDSCAPE  GARDENING. 


It  is  totally  different  in  character  from  the  Wilderness  on  the  north, 
and  is  a  nearly  level  or  slightly  undulating  surface,  well  covered  with 
fine  Oak,  Chestnut,  and  other  timber  trees.  Through  it  is  laid  out 
the  Drive  ;  a  sylvan  route  as  agreeable  for  exercise  in  the  carriage, 
or  on  horseback,  as  the  "  Wilderness,"  or  the  "  Morning  Walk,"  is 
for  a  ramble  on  foot.  It  adds  no  small  additional  charm  to  a  coun- 
try place  in  the  eyes  of  many  persons,  this  secluded  and  perfectly 
private  drive,  entirely  within  its  own  limits. 

Though  Montgomery  Place  itself  is  old,  yet  a  spirit  ever  new 
directs  the  improvements  carried  on  within  it.  Among  those  more 
worthy  of  note,  we  gladly  mention  an  arboretum,  just  commenced 
on  a  fine  site  in  the  pleasure-grounds,  set  apart  and  thoroughly  pre- 
pared for  the  purpose.  Here  a  scientific  arrangement  of  all  the  most 
beautiful  hardy  trees  and  shrubs,  will  interest  the  student,  who  looks 
upon  the  vegetable  kingdom  with  a  more  curious  eye  than  the  ordi- 
nary observer. 

The  whole  extent  of  the  private  roads  and  walks,  within  the  pre- 
cincts of  Montgomery  Place,  is  between  Jive  and  six  miles.  The 
remarkably  natural  beauty  which  it  embraces,  has  been  elicited  and 
heightened  every  where,  in  a  tasteful  and  judicious  manner.  There 
are  numberless  lessons  here  for  the  landscape  gardener ;  there  are 
an  hundred  points  that  will  delight  the  artist ;  there  are  meditative 
walks  and  a  thousand  suggestive  aspjects  of  nature  for  the  poet ;  and 
the  man  of  the  world,  engaged  in  a  feverish  pursuit  of  its  gold  and 
its  glitter,  may  here  taste  something  of  the  beauty  and  refinement 
of  rural  life  in  its  highest  aspect,  and  be  able  afterwards  understand- 
ingly  to  wish  that 

"  One  fair  asylum  from  the  world  he  knew, 
One  chosen  seat,  that  charms  the  various  view. 
Who  boasts  of  more,  (believe  the  serious  strain,) 
Sighs  for  a  home,  and  sighs,  alas !  in  vain. 
Thro'  each  he  roves,  the  tenant  of  a  day, 
And  with  the  swallow  wings  the  year  away." 

Rogees. 


RURAL  ARCHITECTDRK 


RURAL  ARCHITECTURE. 


I. 

A  FEW  WORDS  ON  RURAL  ARCHITECTURE. 

July,  1850. 

NO  one  pretends  that  we  have,  as  yet,  either  a  national  architec- 
ture or  national  music  in  America ;  unless  our  Yankee  clap- 
board house  be  taken  as  a  specimen  of  the  first,  and  "Old  Susannah" 
of  the  second  fine  art.  But  there  is,  on  the  other  hand,  perhaps, 
no  country  where  there  is  more  building  or  more  "  musicianing," 
such  as  they  are,  at  the  present  moment.  And  as  a  perfect  taste  in 
arts  is  no  more  to  be  expected  in  a  young  nation,  mainly  occupied 
with  the  practical  wants  of  life,  than  a  knowledge  of  geometry  is 
in  an  infant  school,  we  are  content  with  the  large  promise  that  we 
find  in  the  present,  and  confidently  look  forward  for  fulfilment  to 
the  future. 

In  almost  every  other  country,  a  few  landlords  own  the  land, 
which  a  great  many  tenants  live  upon  and  cultivate.  Hence  the 
general  interest  in  building  is  confined  to  a  comparatively  small  class, 
improvements  are  made  in  a  solid  and  substantial  way,  and  but  little 
change  takes  place  from  one  generation  to  another  in  the  style  of 
the  dwelling  and  the  manner  of  living. 

But  in  this  country  we  are,  comparatively,  all  landlords.  In  the 
country,  especially,  a  large  part  of  the  rural  population  own  the  land 
they  cultivate,  and  build  their  own  houses.    Hence  it  is  a  matter  of 


206 


RURAL  ARCHITECTURE. 


no  little  moment  to  them,  to  avail  themselves  of  every  possible  im- 
provement in  the  manner  of  constructing  their  dwellings,  so  as  to 
secure  the  largest  amount  of  comfort,  convenience,  and  beauty,  for 
the  moderate  sum  which  an  American  landholder  has  to  spend. 
While  the  rural  proprietors  of  the  other  continent  are  often  content 
to  live  in  the  same  houses,  and  with  the  same  inconveniences  as 
their  forefathers,  no  one  in  our  time  and  country,  who  has  any  of 
the  national  spirit  of  progress  in  him,  is  satisfied  unless,  in  building 
a  new  house,  he  has  some  of  the  "modern  improvements"  in  it. 

This  is  a  good  sign  of  the  times  ;  and  when  we  see  it  coupled 
with  another,  viz.,  the  great  desire  to  make  the  dwelling  agreeable 
and  ornamental  as  well  as  comfortable,  we  think  there  is  abundant 
reason  to  hope,  so  far  as  the  country  is  concerned,  that  something 
like  a  national  taste  will  come  in  due  time. 

What  the  popular  taste  in  building  seems  to  us  to  require,  just 
now,  is  not  so  much  impulse  as  right  direction.  There  are  number- 
less persons  who  have  detennined,  in  building  their  new  home  in 
the  countiy,  that  they  "  will  have  something  pretty ;"  but  precisely 
what  character  it  shall  have,  and  whether  there  is  any  character, 
beyond  that  of  a  "  pretty  cottage "  or  a  "  splendid  house,"  is  not 
perhaps  very  clear  to  their  minds. 

We  do  not  make  this  statement  to  find  fault  with  the  condition 
of  things ;  far  from  it.  We  see  too  much  good  in  the  newly  awak- 
ened taste  for  the  Beautiful,  to  criticize  severely  its  want  of  intelli- 
gence as  to  the  exact  course  it  should  take  to  achieve  its  object — or 
perhaps  its  want  of  definiteness  as  to  what  that  object  is — beyond 
providing  an  agreeable  home.  But  we  allude  to  it  to  show  that, 
with  a  little  direction,  the  popular  taste  now  awakened  in  this  par- 
ticular department,  may  develop  itself  in  such  a  manner  as  to  pro- 
duce the  most  satisfactory  and  beautiful  results. 

Fifteen  years  ago  there  was  but  one  idea  relating  to  a  house  in 
the  country.  It  must  be  a  Grecian  temple.  Whether  twenty  feet 
or  two  hundred  feet  front,  it  must  have  its  columns  and  portico. 
There  might  be  comfortable  rooms  behind  them  or  not ;  that  was  a 
matter  which  the  severe  taste  of  the  classical  builder  could  not  stoop 
to  consider.  The  roof  might  be  so  flat  that  there  was  no  space 
for  comfortable  servants'  bedrooms,  or  the  attic  so  hot  that  the  second 


A  EEW  WORDS  ON  RURAL  ARCHITECTURE. 


207 


story  was  uninhabitable  in  a  midsummer's  day.  But  of  what  con- 
sequence was  that,  if  the  portico  were  copied  from  the  Temple  of 
Theseus,  or  the  columns  were  miniature  imitations  in  wood  of  those 
of  Jupiter  Olympus  ? 

We  have  made  a  great  step  onward  in  that  short  fifteen  years. 
There  is,  to  be  sure,  a  fashion  now  in  building  houses  in  the  coun- 
try— almost  as  prevalent  and  despotic  as  its  pseudo-classical  prede- 
cessor, but  it  is  a  far  more  rational  and  sensible  one,  and  though 
likely  to  produce  the  same  unsatisfactory  effect  of  all  other  fashions 
— that  is,  to  substitute  sameness  and  monotony  for  tasteful  individu- 
ality— yet  we  gladly  accept  it  as  the  next  step  onward. 

We  allude,  of  course,  to  the  Gothic  or  English  cottage,  with 
Bteep  roofs  and  high  gables — just  now  the  ambition  of  almost  every 
person  building  in  the  country.  There  are,  indeed,  few  things  so 
beautiful  as  a  cottage  of  this  kind,  well  designed  and  tastefully 
placed.  There  is  nothing,  all  the  world  over,  so  truly  rural  and  so 
unmistakably  country-like  as  this  very  cottage,  which  has  been  de- 
veloped in  so  much  perfection  in  the  rural  lanes  and  amidst  the  pic- 
turesque lights  and  shadows  of  an  English  landscape.  And  for  this 
reason,  because  it  is  essentially  rural  and  country-like,  we  gladly 
welcome  its  general  naturalization  (with  the  needful  variation  of  the 
veranda,  &c,  demanded  by  our  climate),  as  the  type  of  most  of  our 
country  dwellings. 

But  it  is  time  to  enter  a  protest  against  the  absolute  and  indis- 
criminate employment  of  the  Gothic  cottage  in  every  site  and  situ- 
ation in  the  country — whether  appropriate  or  inappropriate — 
whether  suited  to  the  grounds  or  the  life  of  those  who  are  to  in- 
habit it,  or  the  contrary. 

We  have  endeavored,  in  our  work  on  "  Country-Houses,"  just 
issued  from  the  press,  to  show  that  rural  architecture  has  more  sig- 
nificance and  a  deeper  meaning  than  merely  to  afford  a  "  pretty 
cottage,"  or  a  "  handsome  house,"  for  him  who  can  afford  to  pay  for 
it.  We  believe  not  only  that  a  house  may  have  an  absolute  beauty 
of  its  own,  growing  out  of  its  architecture,  but  that  it  may  have  a 
relative  beauty  no  less  interesting,  which  arises  from  its  expressing 
the  life  and  occupation  of  those  who  build  or  inhabit  it.  In  other 
wbrds7we  think  the  home  of  every  family,  possessed  of  character 


208 


RURAL  ARCHITECTURE. 


may  be  made  to  express  that  character,  and  will  be  most  beautiful 
(supposing  the  character  good),  when  in  addition  to  architectural 
beauty  it  unites  this  significance  or  individuality. 

We  have  not  the  space  to  go  into  detail  on  this  subject  here ; 
and  to  do  so  would  only  be  repeating  what  we  have  already  said  in 
the  work  in  question.  But  the  most  casual  reader  will  understand 
from  our  suggestion,  that  if  a  man's  house  can  be  made  to  express 
the  best  traits  of  his  character,  it  is  undeniable  that  a  large  source 
of  beauty  and  interest  is  always  lost  by  those  who  copy  each  other's 
homes  without  reflection,  even  though  they  may  be  copying  the 
most  faultless  cottage  om6e. 

We  would  have  the  cottage,  the  farm-house,  and  the  larger 
country-house,  all  marked  by  a  somewhat  distinctive  character  of 
their  own,  so  far  as  relates  to  making  them  complete  and  individual 
of  their  kind ;  and  believing  as  we  do,  that  the  beauty  and  force 
of  every  true  man's  life  or  occupation  depend  largely  on  his  pursu- 
ing it  frankly,  honestly,  and  openly,  with  all  the  individuality  of  his 
character,  we  would  have  his  house  and  home  help  to  give  signifi- 
cance to,  and  dignify  that  daily  life  and  occupation,  by  harmonizing 
with  them.  For  this  reason,  we  think  the  farmer  errs  when  he 
copies  the  filagree  work  of  the  retired  citizen's  cottage,  instead  of 
showing  that  rustic  strength  and  solidity  in  his  house  which  are  its 
true  elements  of  interest  and  beauty.  For  this  reason,  we  think  he 
who  builds  a  simple  and  modest  cottage  in  the  country,  fails  in  at- 
taining that  which  he  aims  at  by  copying,  as  nearly  as  his  means 
will  permit,  the  parlors,  folding  doors,  and  showy  furniture  of  the 
newest  house  he  has  seen  in  town. 

We  will  not  do  more  at  present  than  throw  out  these  sugges- 
tions, in  the  hope  that  those  about  to  build  in  the  country  will  reflect 
that  an  entirely  satisfactory  house  is  one  in  which  there  are  not  only 
pretty  forms  and  details,  but  one  which  has  some  meaning  in  its 
beauty,  considered  in  relation  to  their  own  position,  character,  and 
daily  lives. 


n. 

MORAL  INFLUENCE  OF  GOOD  HOUSES. 

February,  1848. 

AVERY  little  observation  will  convince  any  one  that,  in  the 
United  States,  a  new  era,  in  Domestic  Architecture,  is  already 
commenced.  A  few  years  ago,  and  all  our  houses,  with  rare  excep- 
tions, were  built  upon  the  most  meagre  plan.  A  shelter  from  the 
inclemencies  of  the  weather ;  space  enough  in  which  to  eat,  drink 
and  sleep;  perhaps  some  excellence  of  mechanical  workmanship 
in  the  details ;  these  were  the  characteristic  features  of  the  great 
mass  of  our  dwelling-houses — and  especially  country  houses — a  few 
years  ago. 

A  dwelling-house,  for  a  civilized  man,  built  with  no  higher 
aspirations  than  these,  we  look  upon  with  the  same  feelings  that 
inspire  us  when  we  behold  the  Indian,  who  guards  himself  against 
heat  and  cold  by  that  primitive,  and,  as  he  considers  it,  sufficient 
costume — a  blanket.  An  unmeaning  pile  of  wood,  or  stone,  serves 
as  a  shelter  to  the  bodily  frame  of  man ;  it  does  the  same  for  the 
brute  animals  that  serve  him ;  the  blanket  covers  the  skin  of  the 
savage  from  the  harshness  of  the  elements,  as  the  thick  shaggy  coat 
protects  the  beasts  he  hunts  in  the  forest.  But  these  are  only  mani- 
festations of  the  grosser  wants  of  life ;  and  the  mind  of  the  civilized 
and  cultivated  man  as  naturally  manifests  itself  in  fitting,  appro- 
priate, and  beautiful  forms  of  habitation  and  costume,  as  it  does  in 
fine  and  lofty  written  thought  and  uttered  speech. 

Hence,  as  society  advances  beyond  that  condition,  in  which  the 
primary  wants  of  human  nature  are  satisfied,  we  naturally  find  that 
14 


210 


RURAL  ARCHITECTURE. 


literature  and  the  arts  nourish.  Along  with  great  orators  and  in 
spired  poets,  come  fine  architecture,  and  tasteful  grounds  and  gardens. 

Let  us  congratulate  ourselves  that  the  new  era  is  fairly  com- 
menced in  the  United  States.  We  by  no  means  wish  to  be  under- 
stood, that  all  our  citizens  have  fairly  passed  the  barrier  that  separates 
utter  indifference,  or  peurile  fancy,  from  good  taste.  There  are,  and 
will  be,  for  a  long  time,  a  large  proportion  of  houses  built  without 
any  definite  principles  of  construction,  except  those  of  the  most 
downright  necessity.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  we  are  glad  to  per- 
ceive a  very  considerable  sprinkling  over  the  whole  country — from 
the  Mississippi  to  the  Kennebec — of  houses  built  in  such  a  manner, 
as  to  prove  at  first  glance,  that  the  ideal  of  their  owners  has  risen 
above  the  platform  of  mere  animal  wants :  that  they  perceive  the 
intellectual  superiority  of  a  beautiful  design  over  a  meaningless  and 
uncouth  form  ;  and  that  a  house  is  to  them  no  longer  a  comfortable 
shelter  merely,  but  an  expression  of  the  intelligent  life  of  man,  in  a 
state  of  society  where  the  soul,  the  intellect,  and  the  heart,  are  all 
awake,  and  all  educated. 

There  are,  perhaps,  few  persons  who  have  examined  fully  the 
effects  of  a  general  diffusion  of  good  taste,  of  well  being,  and  a  love 
of  order  and  proportion,  upon  the  community  at  large.  There  are, 
no  doubt,  some  who  look  upon  fine  houses  as  fostering  the  pride  of 
the  few,  and  the  envy  and  discontent  of  the  many ;  and — -in  some 
transatlantic  countries,  where  wealth  and  its  avenues  are  closed  to  all 
but  a  few — not  without  reason.  But,  in  this  country,  where  integ- 
rity and  industry  are  almost  always  rewarded  by  more  than  the 
means  of  subsistence,  we  have  firm  faith  in  the  moral  effects  of  the 
fine  arts.  We  believe  in  the  bettering  influence  of  beautiful  cottages 
and  country  houses — in  the  improvement  of  human  nature  necessa- 
rily resulting  to  all  classes,  from  the  possession  of  lovely  gardens 
and  fruitful  orchards. 

We  do  not  know  how  we  can  present  any  argument  of  this 
matter,  if  it  requires  one,  so  good  as  one  of  that  long-ago  distin- 
guished man — Dr.  Dwight.  He  is  describing,  in  his  Travels  in 
America,  the  influence  of  good  architecture,  as  evinced  in  its  effects 
on  the  manners  and  character  of  the  inhabitants  in  a  town  in  New 
England : 


MORAL  INFLUENCE  OF  GOOB  HOUSES. 


211 


"  There  is  a  kind  of  symmetry  in  the  thoughts,  feelings,  and  efforts 
of  the  human  mind.  Its  taste,  intelligence,  affections,  and  conduct, 
are  so  intimately  related,  that  no'  preconcertion  can  prevent  them 
from  being  mutually  causes  and  effects.  The  first  thing  powerfully 
operated  upon,  and,  in  its  turn,  proportionately  operative,  is  the  taste. 
The  perception  of  beauty  and  deformity,  of  refinement  and  gross- 
ness,  of  decency  and  vulgarity,  of  propriety  and  indecorum,  is  the 
first  thing  which  influences  man  to  attempt  an  escape  from  a  grov- 
elling, brutish  character  ;  a  character  in  which  morality  is  chilled, 
or  absolutely  frozen.  In  most  persons,  this  perception  is  awakened 
by  what  may  be  called  the  exterior  of  society,  particularly  by  the 
mode  of  building.  Uncouth,  mean,  ragged,  dirty  houses,  constitut- 
ing the  body  of  any  town,  will  regularly  be  accompanied  by  coarse, 
grovelling  manners.  The  dress,  the  furniture,  the  mode  of  living, 
and  the  manners,  will  all  correspond  with  the  appearance  of  the 
buildings,  and  will  universally  be,  in  every  such  case,  of  a  vulgar 
and  debased  nature.  On  the  inhabitants  of  such  a  town,  it  will  be 
difficult,  if  not  impossible,  to  work  a  conviction  that  intelligence  is 
either  necessary  or  useful.  Generally,  they  will  regard  both  learn- 
ing and  science  only  with  contempt.  Of  morals,  except  in  the 
coarsest  form,  and  that  which  has  the  least  influence  on  the  heart, 
they  will  scarcely  have  any  apprehensions.  The  rights  enforced  by 
municipal  law,  they  may  be  compelled  to  respect,  and  the  corres- 
ponding duties  they  may  be  necessitated  to  perform  ;  but  the  rights 
and  obligations  which  lie  beyond  the  reach  of  magistracy,  in  which 
the  chief  duties  of  morality  are  found,  and  from  which  the  chief 
enjoyments  of  society  spring,  will  scarcely  gain  even  their  passing 
notice.  They  may  pay  their  debts,  but  they  will  neglect  almost 
every  thing  of  value  in  the  education  of  their  children. 

"  The  very  fact,  that  men  see  good  houses  built  around  them, 
will,  more  than  almost  any  thing  else,  awaken  in  them  a  sense  of 
superiority  in  those  by  whom  such  houses  are  inhabited.  The  same 
sense  is  derived,  in  the  same  manner,  from  handsome  dress,  furni- 
ture, and  equipage.  The  sense  of  beauty  is  necessarily  accompa- 
nied by  a  perception  of  the  superiority  which  it  possesses  over  de- 
formity ;  and  is  instinctively  felt  to  confer  this  superiority  on  those 
who  can  call  it  their  own,  over  those  who  cannot. 


212 


RURAL  ARCHITECTURE. 


"  This,  I  apprehend,  is  the  manner  in  which  coarse  society  is 
first  started  towards  improvement ;  for  no  objects,  but  those  which 
are  sensible,  can  make  any  considerable  impression  on  coarse 
minds." 

The  first  motive  which  leads  men  to  build  good  houses  is,  no 
doubt,  that  of  increasing  largely  their  own  comfort  and  happiness. 
But  it  is  easy  to  see  that,  in  this  country,  where  so  many  are  able 
to  achieve  a  home  for  themselves,  he  who  gives  to  the  public  a 
more  beautiful  and  tasteful  model  of  a  habitation  than  his  neigh- 
bors, is  a  benefactor  to  the  cause  of  morality,  good  order,  and  the 
improvement  of  society  where  he  lives.  To  place  before  men  rea- 
sonable objects  of  ambition,  and  to  dignify  and  exalt  their  aims, 
cannot  but  be  laudable  in  the  sight  of  all.  And  in  a  country  where 
it  is  confessedly  neither  for  the  benefit  of  the  community  at  large, 
nor  that  of  the  succeeding  generation,  to  amass  and  transmit  great 
fortunes,  we  would  encourage  a  taste  for  beautiful  and  appropriate 
architecture,  as  a  means  of  promoting  public  virtue  and  the  general 
good. 

We  have  said  beautiful  and  appropriate  architecture — not  with- 
out desiring  that  all  our  readers  should  feel  the  value  of  this  latter 
qualification  as  fully  as  we  do.  Among  the  many  strivings  after 
architectural  beauty,  which  we  see  daily  made  by  our  countrymen, 
there  are,  of  course,  some  failures,  and  only  now  and  then  examples 
of  perfect  success.  But  the  rock  on  which  all  novices  split — and 
especially  all  men  who  have  thought  little  of  the  subject,  and  who  are 
satisfied  with  a  feeble  imitation  of  some  great  example  from  other 
countries — this  dangerous  rock  is  want  of  fitness,  or  propriety. 
Almost  the  first  principle,  certainly  the  grand  principle,  which  an 
apostle  of  architectural  progress  ought  to  preach  in  America,  is, 
"  keep  in  mind  propriety."  Do  not  build  your  houses  like  tem- 
ples, churches,  or  cathedrals.  Let  them  be,  characteristically,  dwell- 
ing-houses. And  more  than  this ;  always  let  their  individuality  of 
purpose  be  fairly  avowed  ;  let  the  cottage  be  a  cottage — the  farm- 
house a  farm-house — the  villa  a  villa,  and  the  mansion  a  mansion. 
Do  not  attempt  to  build  a  dwelling  upon  your  farm  after  the  fashion 
of  the  town-house  of  your  friend,  the  city  merchant ;  do  not  at- 
tempt to  give  the  modest  little  cottage  the  ambitious  air  of  the 


MORAL  INFLUENCE  OF  GOOD  HOUSES. 


213 


ornate  villa.  Be  assured  that  there  is,  if  you  will  search  for  it,  a 
peculiar  beauty  that  belongs  to  each  of  these  classes  of  dwellings 
that  heightens  and  adorns  it  almost  magically ;  while,  if  it  borrows 
the  ornaments  of  the  other,  it  is  only  debased  and  falsified  in  char- 
acter and  expression.  The  most  expensive  and  elaborate  structure, 
overlaid  with  costly  ornaments,  will  fail  to  give  a  ray  of  pleasure  to 
the  mind  of  real  taste,  if  it  is  not  appropriate  to  the  purpose  in 
view,  or  the  means  or  position  of  its  occupant ;  while  the  simple 
farm-house,  rustically  and  tastefully  adorned,  and  ministering  beauty 
to  hearts  that  answer  to  the  spirit  of  the  beautiful,  will  weave  a 
spell  in  the  memory  not  easily  forgotten. 


in. 


A  FEW  WORDS  ON  OUR  PROGRESS  IN"  BUILDING, 

June,  1851. 

THE  "  Genius  of  Architecture,"  said  Thomas  Jefferson,  some  fifty 
years  ago,  "  has  shed  its  malediction  upon  America."  Jeffer- 
son, though  the  boldest  of  democrats,  had  a  secret  respect  and  ad- 
miration for  the  magnificent  results  of  aristocratic  institutions  in  the 
arts,  and  had  so  refined  his  taste  in  France,  as  to  be  shocked,  past 
endurance,  on  his  return  home,  with  the  raw  and  crude  attempts  at 
building  in  the  republic. 

No  one,  however,  can  accuse  the  Americans  with  apathy  or  want 
of  interest  in  architecture,  at  the  present  moment.  Within  ten  years 
past,  the  attention  of  great  numbers  has  been  turned  to  the  improve- 
ment and  embellishment  of  public  and  private  edifices ;  many  foreign 
architects  have  settled  in  the  Union ;  numerous  works — especially 
upon  domestic  architecture — have  been  issued  from  the  press,  and 
the  whole  community,  in  town  and  country,  seem  at  the  present 
moment  to  be  afflicted  with  the  building  mania.  The  upper  part 
of  New- York,  esrjecially,  has  the  ah-  of  some  city  of  fine  houses  in 
all  styles,  rising  from  the  earth  as  if  by  enchantment,  while  in  the 
suburbs  of  Boston,  rural  cottages  are  springing  up  on  all  sides,  as  if 
the  "Genius  of  Architecture "  had  sown,  broadcast,  the  seeds  of 
ornie  cottages,  and  was  in  a  fair  way  of  having  a  fine  harvest  in  that 
quarter. 

There  are  many  persons  who  are  as  discontented  with  this  new  hot- 
bed growth  of  architectural  beauty,  as  Jefferson  was  with  the  earlier 
and  ranker  growth  of  deformity  in  his  day.    Some  denounce  "  fancy 


A  FEW  WORDS  ON  OUR  PROGRESS  IN  BUILDING.  215 

houses," — as  they  call  every  thing  hut  a  solid  square  block — alto- 
gether. Others  have  become  weary  of  "  Gothic"  (without,  perhaps, 
ever  having  really  seen  one  good  specimen  of  the  style),  and  suggest 
whether  there  be  not  something  barbarous  in  a  lancet  window  to  a 
modern  parlor ;  while  the  larger  number  go  on  building  vigorously 
in  the  newest  style  they  can  find,  determined  to  have  something,  if 
not  better  and  more  substantial  than  then  neighbors,  at  least  more 
extraordinary  and  uncommon. 

There  is  still  another  class  of  our  countrymen  who  put  on  a 
hypercritical  air,  and  sit  in  judgment  on  the  progress  and  develop- 
ment of  the  building  taste  in  this  country.  They  disclaim  every 
thing  foreign.  They  will  have  no  Gothic  mansions,  Italian  villas,  or 
Swiss  cottages.  Nothing  will  go  down  with  them  but  an  entirely 
new  "  order,"  as  they  call  it,  and  they  berate  all  architectural  writers 
(we  have  come  in  for  our  share)  for  presenting  certain  more  or  less 
meritorious  modifications  of  such  foreign  styles.  What  they  de- 
mand, with  their  brows  lowered  and  their  hands  clenched,  is  an 
"  American  style  of  architecture !"  As  if  an  architecture  sprung  up  "r 
like  the  after-growth  in  our  forests,  the  natural  and  immediate  con- 
sequence of  clearing  the  soil.  As  if  a  people  not  even  indigenous  to  " 
the  country,  but  wholly  European  colonists,  or  their  descendants,  a 
people  who  have  neither  a  new  language  nor  religion,  who  wear  the 
fashions  of  Paris,  and  who,  in  their  highest  education,  hang  upon  the 
skirts  of  Greece  and  Rome,  were  likely  to  invent  (as  if  it  were  a  new 
plough)  an  original  and  altogether  novel  and  satisfactory  style  of 
architecture. 

A  little  learning,  we  have  been  rightly  told,  is  one  of  the  articles 
to  be  labelled  "dangerous."  Our  hypercritical  friends  prove  the 
truth  of  the  saying,  by  expecting  what  never  did,  and  never  will 
happen.  An  original  style  in  architecture  or  any  other  of  the  arts, 
has  never  yet  been  invented  or  composed  outright ;  but  all  have  been 
modifications  of  previously  existing  modes  of  building.  Late  discov- 
erers have  proved  that  Grecian  Architecture  was  only  perfected  in 
Greece — the  models  of  their  temples  were  found  in  older  Egypt.* 

*  According  to  the  last  conclusions  of  the  savans,  Solomon's  Temple  was 
a  pure  model  of  Greek  Architecture. 


216 


RURAL  ARCHITECTURE. 


The  Romans  composed  their  finest  structures  out  of  the  very  ruins 
of  public  edifices  brought  from  Greece,  and  the  round  arch  had  its 
rise  from  working  with  these  fragments  instead  of  masses  of  stone. 
The  Gothic  arch,  the  origin  of  which  has  been  claimed  as  an  inven- 
tion of  comparatively  modern  art,  Mr.  RusMn  has  proved  to  be  of 
purely  Arabic  origin,  in  use  in  Asia  long  before  Gothic  architecture 
was  known,  and  gradually  introduced  into  Em-ope  by  architects  from 
the  East,  And  whoever  studies  Oriental  art,  will  see  the  elements 
of  Arabic  architecture,  the  groundwork  of  the  style,  abounding  in 
the  ruins  of  Indian  temples  of  the  oldest  date  known  on  the  globe. 

It  is  thus,  by  a  little  research,  that  we  find  there  has  never  been 
such  a  novelty  as  the  invention  of  a  positively  new  style  in  biulding. 
What  are  now  known  as  the  Grecian,  Gothic,  Roman  and  other 
styles,  are  only  those  local  modifications  of  the  styles  of  the  older 
countries,  from  which  the  newer  colony  borrowed  them,  as  the  cli- 
mate, habits  of  the  people,  and  genius  of  the  architects,  acting  upon 
each  other  through  a  long  series  of  years,  gradually  developed  into 
such  styles.  It  is,  therefore,  as  absurd  for  the  critics  to  ask  for  the 
American  style  of  architecture,  as  it  was  for  the  English  friends  of  a 
Yankee  of  our  acquaintance  to  request  him  (after  they  were  on  quite 
familiar  terms)  to  do  them  the  favor  to  put  on  his  savage  dress  and 
talk  a  little  American !  This  country  is,  indeed,  too  distinct  in  its 
institutions,  and  too  vast  in  its  territorial  and  social  destinies,  not  to 
shape  out  for  itself  a  great  national  type  in  character,  manners  and 
art ;  but  the  development  of  the  finer  and  more  intellectual  traits  of 
character  are  slower  in  a  nation  than  they  are  in  a  man,  and  only 
time  can  develope  them  healthily  in  either  case. 

In  the  mean  time,  we  are  in  the  midst  of  what  may  be  called 
the  experimental  stage  of  architectural  taste.  With  the  passion  for 
novelty,  and  the  feeling  of  independence  that  belong  to  this  country, 
our  people  seem  determined  to  try  every  thing.  A  proprietor  on 
the  lower  part  of  the  Hudson,  is  building  a  stone  castle,  with  all  the 
towers  clustered  together,  after  the  fashion  of  the  old  robber  strong- 
holds on  the  Rhine.  We  trust  he  has  no  intention  of  levying  toll 
on  the  railroad  that  runs  six  trains  a  day  under  his  frowning  battle- 
ments, or  exacting  booty  from  the  river  craft  of  all  sizes  forever 
floating  by.    A  noted  New-Yorker  has  erected  a  villa  near  Bridge- 


A  FEW  WORDS  ON  OUR  PROGRESS  IN  BUILDING. 


217 


port,  which  looks  like  the  minareted  and  domed  residence  of  a  Per- 
sian Shah — though  its  orientalism  is  rather  put  out  of  countenance 
by  the  prim  and  puritanical  dwellings  of  the  plain  citizens  within 
rifle  shot  of  it.  A  citizen  of  fortune  dies,  and  leaves  a  large  sum  to 
erect  a  "  large  plain  building "  for  a  school  to  educate  orphan  boys 
— which  the  building  committee  consider  to  mean  a  superb  marble 
temple,  like  that  of  Jupiter  Olympus ;  a  foreigner  liberally  bequeaths 
his  fortune  to  the  foundation  of  an  institution  "  for  the  diffusion  of 
knowledge  among  men" — and  the  regents  erect  a  college  in  the 
style  of  a  Norman  monastery — with  a  relish  of  the  dark  ages  in  it, 
the  better  to  contrast  with  its  avowed  purpose  of  diffusing  light. 
On  all  sides,  in  our  large  towns,  we  have  churches  built  after  Gothic 
models,  and  though  highly  fitting  and  beautiful  as  churches,  i.  e., 
edifices  for  purely  devotional  purposes — are  quite  useless  as  places 
to  hear  sermons  in,  because  the  preacher's  voice  is  inaudible  in  at 
least  one-half  of  the  cimrch.  And  every  where  in  the  older  parts  of 
the  country,  private  fortunes  are  rapidly  crystallizing  into  mansions, 
villas,  country-houses  and  cottages,  in  all  known  styles  supposed  to 
be  in  any  way  suitable  to  the  purposes  of  civilized  habitations. 

Without  in  the  least  desiring  to  apologize  for  the  frequent  viola- 
tions of  taste  witnessed  in  all  this  fermentation  of  the  popular  feeling 
in  architecture,  we  do  not  hesitate  to  say  that  we  rejoice  in  it.  It- 
is  a  fermentation  that  shows  clearly  there  is  no  apathy  in  the  public 
mind,  and  we  feel  as  much  confidence  as  the  vintner  who  walks 
through  the  wine  cellar  in  full  activity,  that  the  froth  of  foreign  affec- 
tations will  work  off,  and  the  impurities  of  vulgar  taste  settle  down, 
leaving  us  the  pure  spirit  of  a  better  national  taste  at  last.  Eome 
was  not  built  in  a  day,  and  whoever  would  see  a  national  architec- 
ture, must  be  patient  till  it  has  time  to  rise  out  of  the  old  materials, 
under  the  influences  of  a  new  climate,  our  novel  institutions  and 
modified  habits. 

In  domestic  architecture,  the  difficulties  that  lie  in  the  way  of 
achieving  a  pure  and  correct  taste,  are,  perhaps,  greater  than  in  civil 
or  ecclesiastical  edifices.  There  are  so  many  private  fancies,  and 
personal  vanities,  which  seek  to  manifest  themselves  in  the  house  of 
the  ambitious  private  citizen,  and  which  are  defended  under  the 
shield  of  that  miserable  falsehood,  "there  is  no  disputing  about 


218 


RURAL  ARCHITECTURE. 


tastes?  (If  the  proverb  read  whims,  it  would  be  gospel  truth.) 
Hence  we  see  numberless  persons  who  set  about  building  their  own 
house  without  the  aid  of  an  architect,  who  would  not  think  of  being 
their  own  lawyer,  though  one  profession  demands  as  much  study  and 
capacity  as  the  other  ;  and  it  is  not  to  this  we  object,  for  we  hold 
that  a  man  may  often  build  his  own  house  and  plead  his  own 
rights  to  justice  satisfactorily — but  it  must  be  done  in  both  instances, 
in  the  simplest  and  most  straightforward  manner.  If  he  attempts 
to  go  into  the  discussion  of  Blackstone  on  the  one  hand,  or  the  mys- 
teries of  Vitruvius  and  Pugin  on  the  other,  he  is  sure  to  get  speedily 
swamped,  and  commit  all  sorts  of  follies  and  extravagancies  quite 
out  of  keeping  with  his  natural  character. 

The  two  greatest  trials  to  the  architect  of  taste,  who  desires  to 
see  his  countiy  and  age  making  a  respectable  figure  in  this  branch 
of  the  arts,  are  to  be  found  in  that  class  of  travelled  smatterers  in 
virtu,  who  have  picked  up  here  and  there,  in  the  tour  from  Liver- 
pool to  Rome,  certain  ill-assorted  notions  of  art,  which  they  wish 
combined  in  one  sublime  whole,  in  the  shape  of  then*  own  domicil ; 
and  that  larger  class,  who  ambitiously  imitate  in  a  small  cottage,  all 
that  belongs  to  palaces,  castles  and  buildings  of  princely  dimensions. 

The  first  class  is  confined  to  no  countiy.  Examples  are  to  be 
found  every  where,  and  we  do  not  know  of  a  better  hit  at  the  folly 
of  these  cognoscenti,  than  in  the  following  relation  of  experiences  by 
one  of  the  cleverest  of  English  architectural  critics : 

"  The  architect  is  requested,  perhaps,  by  a  man  of  great  wealth, 
nay,  of  established  taste  in  some  points,  to  make  a  design  for  a  villa 
in  a  lovely  situation.  The  future  proprietor  carries  him  up  stairs  to 
his  study,  to  give  him  what  he  calls  his  '  ideas  and  materials,'  and, 
in  all  probability,  begins  somewhat  thus  :  '  This,  sir,  is  a  slight  note; 
I  made  it  on  the  spot ;  approach  to  Villa  Reale,  near  Puzzuoli. 
Dancing  nymphs,  you  perceive  ;  cypresses,  shell  fountain.  I  think 
I  should  like  something  like  this  for  the  approach  ;  classical  you 
perceive,  sir ;  elegant,  graceful.  Then,  sir,  this  is  a  sketch  by  an 
American  friend  of  mine ;  Whe-whaw-Kantamaraw's  wigwam,  king 
of  the  Cannibal  Islands ;  I  think  he  said,  sir.  Log,  you  ob- 
serve ;  scalps,  and  boa  constrictor  skins ;  curious.  Something  like 
this,  sir,  would  look  neat,  I  think,  for  the  front  door ;  don't  you  ? 


A  FEW  WORDS  ON  OUR  PROGRESS  IN  BUILDING.  219 

Then  the  lower  windows,  I'm  not  quite  decided  upon ;  but  what 
would  you  say  to  Egyptian,  sir  ?  I  think  I  should  like  my  windows 
Egyptian,  with  hieroglyphics,  sir  ;  storks  and  coffins,  and  appropri- 
ate mouldings  above ;  I  brought  some  from  Fountain's  Abbey  the 
other  day.  Look  here,  sir ;  angel's  heads  putting  their  tongues  out, 
rolled  up  in  cabbage  leaves,  with  a  dragon  on  each  side  riding  on  a 
broomstick,  and  the  devil  looking  out  from  the  mouth  of  an  alliga- 
tor, sir*  Odd,  I  think ;  interesting.  Then  the  corners  may  be 
turned  by  octagonal  towers,  like  the  centre  one  in  Kenilworth  Cas- 
tle ;  with  Gothic  doors,  portcullis,  and  all,  quite  perfect ;  with  cross 
slits  for  arrows,  battlements  for  musketry,  machiolations  for  boiling 
lead,  and  a  room  at  the  top  for  drying  plums ;  and  the  conservatory 
at  the  bottom,  sir,  with  Virginia  creepers  up  the  towers  ;  door  sup- 
ported by  sphinxes,  holding  scrapers  in  their  fore  paws,  and  having 
their  tails  prolonged  into  warm-water  pipes,  to  keep  the  plants  safe 
in  winter,  &c.' " 

We  have  seen  buildings  in  England,  where  such  Bedlam  sugges- 
tions of  taste  have  not  only  been  made,  but  accepted  either  wholly 
or  partly  by  the  architect,  and  where  the  result  was,  of  course,  both 
ludicrous  and  absurd.  There  is  less  dictation  to  architects  in  this 
country  on  one  hand,  and  more  independence  of  any  class  on  the 
other,  to  bring  such  examples  of  architectural  salmagundies  into  ex- 
istence— though  there  are  a  few  in  the  profession  weak  enough  to 
prostitute  their  talents  to  any  whim  or  caprice  of  the  employer. 

But  by  far  the  greater  danger  at  the  present  moment  lies  in  the 
inordinate  ambition  of  the  builders  of  ornamental  cottages.  Not 
contented  with  the  simple  and  befitting  decoration  of  the  modest 
veranda,  the  bracketed  roof,  the  latticed  window,  and  the  lovely  ac- 
cessories of  vines  and  flowering  shrubs,  the  builder  of  the  cottage  ornate 
in  too  many  cases,  attempts  to  ingraft  upon  his  simple  story  of  a 
habitation,  all  the  tropes  and  figures  of  architectural  rhetoric  which 
belong  to  the  elaborate  oratory  of  a  palace  or  a  temple. 

We  have  made  a  point  of  enforcing  the  superior  charm  of  sim- 
plicity— and  the  realness  of  the  beauty  which  grows  out  of  it,  in 

*  This  grotesque  device  is  actually  carved  on  one  of  the  groins  of  Roslin 
Castle,  Scotland. 


220 


RURAL  ARCHITECTURE. 


our  late  work  on  Country  Houses.  We  even  went  so  far  as  to  give 
a  few  examples  of  farm-houses  studiously  made  simple  and  rural  in 
character,  though  not  without  a  certain  beauty  of  expression  befit- 
ting their  locality,  and  the  uses  to  which  they  were  destined.  But, 
judging  from  some  criticisms  on  these  farm-houses  in  one  of  the 
western  papers,  we  believe  it  will  not  be  an  easy  task  to  convince 
the  future  proprietors  of  farm-houses  and  rural  cottages,  that  truth- 
ful simplicity  is  better  than  borrowed  decorations,  in  their  country 
homes.  Our  critic  wonders  why  farmers  should  not  be  allowed  to 
live  in  as  handsome  houses  (confounding  mere  decorations  with 
beauty)  as  any  other  class  of  our  citizens,  if  they  can  afford  it — and 
claims  for  them  the  use  of  the  most  ornamental  architecture  in  their 
farm-houses.  "We  have  only  to  answer  to  this,  that  the  simplest  ex- 
pression of  beauty  which  grows  out  of  a  man's  life,  ranks  higher 
for  him  than  the  most  elaborate  one  borrowed  from  another's  life 
or  circumstances.  We  will  add,  by  way  of  illustration,  that  there 
is  no  moral  or  political  objection,  that  we  know,  of  a  farmer's  wear- 
ing a  general's  uniform  in  his  corn-fields,  if  he  likes  it  better  than 
plain  clothes  ;  but  to  our  mind,  his  costume — undoubtedly  hand- 
somer in  the  right  place — would  be  both  absurd  and  ugly,  behind 
the  harrow. 

We  are  glad  to  find,  however,  that  our  feeling  of  the  folly  of 
this  exaggerated  pretension  in  cottage  architecture,  is  gradually 
finding  its  expression  in  other  channels  of  the  public  press — a  sure 
sign  that  it  will  eventually  take  hold  of  public  opinion.  The  fol- 
lowing satire  on  the  taste  of  the  day  in  this  overloaded  style  of 
"  carpenter's  gothic,"  from  the  pen  of  one  of  the  wittiest  and  clever- 
est of  American  poets,  has  lately  appeared  (as  part  of  a  longer  satire 
on  another  subject),  in  one  of  our  popular  magazines.  But  it  is  too 
good  to  be  lost  sight  of  by  our  readers,  and  we  recommend  it  to  a 
second  perusal.  A  thought  or  two  upon  its  moral,  as  applied  to 
the  taste  of  the  country,  will  help  us  on  most  essentially  in  this,  our 
experimental  age  of  architecture. 


A  IW  WORDS  ON  OUR  PROGRESS  IN  BUILDING. 


221 


THE  RURAL  COT  OF  MR.  KNOTT. 

BY  LOWEDL. 

My  -worthy  friend,  A.  Gordon  Knott, 

From  business  snug  withdrawn, 
Was  much  contented  with  a  lot 
Which  would  contain  a  Tudor  cot 
'Twixt  twelve  feet  square  of  garden-plot 
And  twelve  feet  more  of  lawn. 

He  had  laid  business  on  the  shelf 

To  give  his  taste  expansion, 
And,  since  no  man,  retired  with  pelf, 

The  building  mania  can  shun, 
Knott  being  middle-aged  himself, 
Kesolved  to  build  (unhappy  elf!) 

A  mediaeval  mansion. 

He  called  an  architect  in  counsel ; 

"I  want,"  said  he,  "  a — you  know  what, 

(You  are  a  builder,  I  am  Knott,) 

A  thing  complete  from  chimney-pot 
Down  to  the  very  groundsel ; 

Here's  a  half  acre  of  good  land ; 

Just  have  it  nicely  mapped  and  planned, 
And  make  your  workmen  drive  on ; 

Meadow  there  is,  and  upland  too, 

And  I  should  like  a  water- view, 
D'  you  think  you  could  contrive  one  ? 

(Perhaps  the  pump  and  trough  would  do, 

If  painted  a  judicious  blue  ?) 

The  woodland  I've  attended  to ;" 

(He  meant  three  pines  stuck  up  askew, 
Two  dead  ones  and  a  live  one.) 

"A  pocket-full  of  rocks  'twould  take 
To  build  a  house  of  freestone, 

But  then  it  is  not  hard  to  make 
What  now-a-days  is  the  stone  ; 

The  cunning  painter  in  a  trice 

Tour  house's  outside  petrifies, 

And  people  think  it  very  gneiss 
Without  inquiring  deeper ; 


222 


RURAL  ARCHITECTURE. 


My  money  never  shall  be  thrown 
Away  on  such  a  deal  of  stone, 
When  stone  of  deal  is  cheaper." 

And  so  the  greenest  of  antiques 

"Was  reared  for  Knott  to  dwell  in ; 
The  architect  worked  hard  for  weeks 

In  venting  all  his  private  peaks 

Upon  the  roof,  whose  crop  of  leaks 
Had  satisfied  Fluellen. 
Whatever  anybody  had 
Out  of  the  common,  good  or  bad, 

Knott  had  it  all  worked  well  in, 
A  donjon  keep  where  clothes  might  dry, 
A  porter's  lodge  that  was  a  sty, 
A  campanile  slim  and  high, 

Too  small  to  hang  a  bell  in ; 
All  up  and  down  and  here  and  there, 
With  Lord-knows- what  of  round  and  square 
Stuck  on  at  random  every  where ; 
It  was  a  house  to  make  one  stare, 

All  corners  and  all  gables ; 
Like  dogs  let  loose  upon  a  bear, 
Ten  emulous  styles  staboyed  with  care, 
The  whole  among  them  seemed  to  bear 
And  all  the  oddities  to  spare, 

Were  set  upon  the  stables. 

Knott  was  delighted  with  a  pile 

Approved  by  fashion's  leaders , 
(Only  he  made  the  builder  smile, 
By  asking,  every  little  while, 
Why  that  was  called  the  Twodoor  style. 

Which  certainly  had  three  doors  ?) 
Yet  better  for  this  luckless  man 
If  he  had  put  a  downright  ban 

Upon  the  thing  in  limine  ; 
For,  though  to  quit  affairs  his  plan, 
Ere  many  days,  poor  Knott  began 
Perforce  accepting  draughts  that  ran 

All  ways — except  up  chimney : 
The  house,  though  painted  stone  to  mock, 
With  nice  white  lines  round  every  block, 

Some  trepidation  stood  in, 


A  FEW  WORDS  ON  OUR  PROGRESS  IN  BUILDING.  223 


When  tempests  (with  petrific  shock, 
So  to  speak)  made  it  really  rock, 

Though  not  a  whit  less  wooden ; 
And  painted  stone,  howe'er  well  done, 
Will  not  take  in  the  prodigal  sun 
Whose  beams  are  never  quite  at  one  -   a  . 

With  our  terrestrial  lumber ; 
So  the  wood  shrank  around  the  knots, 
And  gaped  in  disconcerting  spots, 
And  there  were  lots  of  dots  and  rots 

And  crannies  without  number, 
Where  though,  as  you  may  well  presume, 
The  wind,  like  water  through  a  flume, 

Came  rushing  in  ecstatic, 
Leaving  in  all  three  floors,  no  room 

That  was  not  a  rheumatic ; 
And  what,  with  points  and  squares  and  rounds, 

Grown  shaky  on  their  poises, 
The  house  at  night  was  full  of  pounds, 
Thumps,  bumps,  creaks,  scratchings,  raps, — till — "zounds," 
Cried  Knott,  "  this  goes  beyond  all  bounds, 
I  do  not  deal  in  tongues  and  sounds, 
Nor  have  I  let  my  house  and  grounds, 

To  a  family  of  Nbyeses." 


IV. 


COCKNEYTSM  IN  THE  COUNTRY. 


September,  1849. 


"HEN  a  fanner,  who  visits  the  metropolis  once  a  year,  stares 


V  V  into  the  shop  windows  in  Broadway,  and  stops  now  and  then 
with  an  indefinite  curiosity  at  the  corners  of  the  streets,  the  citizens 
smile,  with  the  satisfaction  of  superior  knowledge,  at  the  awkward 
airs  of  the  countryman  in  town. 

But  how  shall  we  describe  the  conduct  of  the  true  cockneys  in 
the  country  ?  How  shall  we  find  words  to  express  our  horror  and 
pity  at  the  cockneyisms  with  which  they  deform  the  landscape? 
How  shall  we  paint,  without  the  aid  of  Hogarth  and  Cruikshanks, 
the  ridiculous  insults  which  they  often  try  to  put  upon  nature  and 
truth  in  their  cottages  and  country-seats  ? 

The  countryman  in  town  is  at  least  modest.  He  has,  perhaps, 
a  mysterious  though  mistaken  respect  for  men  who  live  in  such 
prodigiously  fine  houses,  who  drive  in  coaches  with  liveried  servants, 
and  pay  thousands  for  the  transfer  of  little  scraps  of  paper,  which 
they  call  stocks. 

But  the  time  cit  is  brazen  and  impertinent  in  the  country. 
Conscious  that  his  clothes  are  designed,  his  hat  fabricated,  his  til- 
bury built,  by  the  only  artists  of  their  several  professions  on  this 
side  of  the  Atlantic,  he  pities  and  despises  all  who  do  not  bear  the 
outward  stamp  of  the  same  coinage.  He  comes  in  the  country  to 
rusticate,  (that  is,  to  recruit  his  purse  and  his  digestion,)  veiy  much 
as  he  turns  his  horse  out  to  grass ;  as  a  means  of  gaining  strength 
sufficient  to  go  back  again  to  the  only  arena  in  which  it  is  worth 


COCKNEYISM  IN"  THE  COUNTRY. 


225 


while  to  exhibit  his  powers.  He  wonders  how  people  can  live  in 
the  country  from  choice,  and  asks  a  solemn  question,  now  and  then, 
about  passing  the  winter  there,  as  he  would  about  a  passage 
through  Behring's  Straits,  or  a  pic-nic  on  the  borders  of  the  Dead 
Sea. 

But  this  is  all  very  harmless.  On  their  own  ground,  country 
folks  have  the  advantage  of  the  cockneys.  The  scale  is  turned 
then ;  and  knowing  perfectly  well  how  to  moAV,  cradle,  build  stone 
walls  and  drive  oxen, — undeniably  useful  and  substantial  kinds  of 
knowledge, — they  are  scarcely  less  amused  at  the  fine  airs  and 
droll  ignorances  of  the  cockney  in  the  country,  who  does  not  know 
a  bullrush  horn  a  butternut,  than  the  citizens  are  in  town  at  their 
ignorance  of  an  air  of  the  new  opera,  or  the  step  of  the  last 
redowa. 

But  if  the  cockney  visitor  is  harmless,  the  cockney  resident  is 
not.  When  the  downright  citizen  retires  to  the  country,^— not 
because  he  has  any  taste  for  it,  but  because  it  is  the  fashion  to  have 
a  country  house, — he  often  becomes,  perhaps  for  the  first  time  in 
his  life,  a  dangerous  member  of  society.  There  is  always  a  certain 
influence  about  the  mere  possessor  of  wealth,  that  dazzles  us,  and 
makes  us  see  things  in  a  false  light ;  and  the  cockney  has  wealth. 
As  he  builds  a  house  which  costs  five  times  as  much  as  that  of  any 
of  his  country  neighbors,  some  of  them,  who  take  it  for  granted 
that  wealth  and  taste  go  together,  fancy  the  cockney  house  puts 
their  simple,  modest  cottages  to  the  blush.  Hence,  they  directly  go 
to  imitating  it  in  their  moderate  way ;  and  so,  a  quiet  country 
neighborhood  is  as  certainly  tainted  with  the  malaria  of  cockneyism, 
as  it  would  be  by  a  ship-fever,  or  the  air  of  the  Pontine  marshes. 

The  cockneyisms  which  are  fatal  to  the  peace  of  mind,  and 
more  especially  to  the  right  feeling  of  persons  of  good  sense  and 
propriety  in  the  country,  are  those  which  have  perhaps  a  real  mean- 
ing and  value  in  town  ;  which  are  associated  with  excellent  houses 
and  people  there ;  and  which  are  only  absurd  and  foolish  when 
transplanted,  without  the  least  reflection  or  adaptation,  into  the 
wholly  different  and  distinct  condition  of  things  in  country  life. 

It  would  be  too  long  and  troublesome  a  task  to  give  a  catalogue 
of  these  sins  against  good  sense  and  good  taste,  which  we  every 
15 


226 


RURAL  ARCHITECTURE. 


day  see  perpetrated  by  people  who  come  from  town,  and  who,  we 
are  bound  to  say,  are  far  from  always  being  cockneys ;  but  who, 
nevertheless,  unthinkingly  perpetrate  these  ever  to  be  condemned 
cockneyisms.  Among  them,  we  may  enumerate,  as  illustrations, — 
building  large  houses,  only  to  shut  up  the  best  rooms  and  live  in 
the  basement ;  placing  the  first  story  so  high  as  to  demand  a  long 
flight  of  steps  to  get  into  the  front  door ;  placing  the  dining-room 
below  stairs,  when  there  is  abundant  space  on  the  first  floor ;  using 
the  iron  railings  of  street  doors  in  town  to  porches  and  piazzas  in 
the  country ;  arranging  suites  of  parlors  with  folding  doors,  precisely 
like  a  town  house,  whe-re  other  and  far  more  convenient  arrange- 
ments could  be  made ;  introducing  plate  glass  windows,  and  ornate 
stucco  cornices  in  cottages  of  moderate  size  and  cost;  building 
large  parlors  for  display,  and  small  bed-rooms  for  daily  use ;  placing 
the  house  so  near  the  street  (with  acres  of  land  in  the  rear)  as  to 
destroy  all  seclusion,  and  secure  all  possible  dust ;  and  all  the 
hundred  like  expedients,  for  producing  the  utmost  effect  in  a  small 
space  in  town,  which  are  wholly  unnecessary  and  uncalled  for  in  the 
country. 

We  remember  few  things  more  unpleasant  than  to  enter  a  cock- 
ney house  in  the  country.  As  the  highest  ideal  of  beauty  in  the 
mind  of  its  owner  is  to  reproduce,  as  nearly  as  possible,  a  fac-simile 
of  a  certain  kind  of  town  house,  one  is  distressed  with  the  entire 
want  of  fitness  and  appropriateness  in  every  thing  it  contains.  The 
furniture  is  all  made  for  display,  not  for  use ;  and  between  a  pro- 
fusion of  gilt  ornaments,  embroidered  white  satin  chairs,  and  other 
like  finely,  one  feels  that  one  has  no  rest  for  the  sole  of  his  foot. 

We  do  not  mean,  by  these  remarks,  to  have  it  understood  that 
we  do  not  admire  really  beautiful,  rich  and  tasteful  furniture,  or 
ornaments  and  decorations  belonging  to  the  interior  and  exterior  of 
houses  in  the  country.  But  we  only  admire  them  when  they  are 
introduced  in  the  right  manner  and  the  right  place.  In  a  country 
house  of  large  size — a  mansion  of  the  first  class — where  there  are 
rooms  in  abundance  for  ah  purposes,  and  where  a  feeling  of  comfort, 
luxury,  and  wealth,  reigns  throughout,  there  is  no  reason  why  the 
most  beautiful  and  highly  finished  decorations  should  not  be  seen 
in  its  drawing-room  or  saloon, — always  supposing  them  to  be  taste- 


COCKNETISM  IN  THE  COUNTRY. 


227 


fill  and  appropriate ;  though  we  confess  our  feeling  is,  that  a  certain 
soberness  should  distinguish  the  richness  of  the  finest  mansion  in  the 
country  from  that  in  town.  Still,  in  a  villa  or  mansion,  where  all 
the  details  are  carefully  elaborated,  where  there  is  no  neglect  of 
essentials  in  order  to  give  effect  to  what  first  meets  the  eye,  where 
every  thing  is  substantial  and  genuine,  and  not  trick  and  tinsel, — 
there  one  expects  to  see  more  or  less  of  the  luxury  of  art  in  its  best 
apartments. 

But  all  this  pleasure  vanishes  in  the  tawdry  and  tinsel  imitation 
of  costly  and  expensive  furniture,  to  be  found  in  cockney  country 
houses.  Instead  of  a  befitting  harmony  through  the  whole  house, 
one  sees  many  minor  comforts  visibly  sacrificed  to  produce  a  little 
extra  show  in  the  parlor ;  mock  "  fashionable  "  furniture,  which,  in- 
stead of  being  really  fine,  has  only  the  look  of  finery,  usurps  in  the 
principal  room  the  place  of  the  becoming,  unpretending  and  modest 
fittings  that  belong  there ;  and  one  is  constantly  struck  with  the 
effort  which  the  cottage  is  continually  making  to  look  like  the  town 
house,  rather  than  to  wear  its  own  more  appropriate  and  becoming 
modesty  of  expression. 

The  pith  of  all  that  should  be  said  on  this  subject,  lies  in  a  few 
words,  viz.,  that  true  taste  lies  in  the  union  of  the  beautiful  and  the 
significant.  Hence,  as  a  house  in  the  country  is  quite  distinct  in 
character  and  uses,  in  many  respects,  from  a  house  in  town,  it 
should  always  be  built  and  furnished  upon  a  widely  different  princi- 
ple; It  is  far  better,  in  a  country  house,  to  have  an  abundance  of 
space,  as  many  rooms  as  possible  on  a  floor,  the  utmost  convenience 
of  arrangement,  a,nd  a  thorough  realization  of  comfort  throughout, 
than  a  couple  of  very  fine  apartments,  loaded  with  showy  furniture, 
*  in  the  latest  style,"  at  the  expense  of  the  useful  and  convenient 
every  where  else. 

And  we  may  add  to  this,  that  the  superior  charm  of  significance 
or  appropriateness  is  felt  instantly  by  every  one,  when  it  is  attained 
— though  display  only  imposes  on  vulgar  minds.  We  have  seen  a 
cottage  where  the  finest  furniture  was  of  oak  in  simple  forms,  where 
every  thing  like  display  was  unknown,  where  every  thing  costly  was 
eschewed,  but  where  you  felt,  at  a  glance,  that  there  was  a  prevail- 
ing taste  and  fitness,  that  gave  a  meaning  to  all,  and  brought  all 


228 


RURAL  ARCHITECTURE. 


into  harmony ;  the  furniture  with  the  house,  the  house  with  the 
grounds,  and  all  with  the  life  of  its  inmates.  This  cottage,  we  need 
scarcely  say,  struck  all  who  entered  it  with  a  pleasure  more  real  and 
enduring  than  that  of  any  costly  mansion  in  the  land.  The  plea 
sure  arose  from  the  feeling  that  all  was  significant ;  that  the  cottage, 
its  arrangement,  its  furniture,  and  its  surroundings,  were  all  in 
keeping  with  the  country,  with  each  other  and  with  their  uses ;  and 
that  no  cockneyisms,  no  imitations  of  city  splendor,  had  violated 
the  simplicity  and  modesty  of  the  country. 

There  must  with  us  be  progress  in  all  things ;  and  an  American 
cannot  but  be  proud  of  the  progress  of  taste  in  this  country.  But 
as  a  great  portion  of  the  improvements,  newly  made  in  the  country, 
are  made  by  citizens,  and  not  unfrequently  by  citizens  whose  time 
has  been  so  closely  occupied  with  business,  that  they  have  had  no 
opportunity  to  cultivate  a  taste  for  rural  matters,  it  is  not  surprising 
that  we  should  continually  see  transplanted,  as  unexceptionable 
things,  the  ideas  in  houses,  furniture,  and  even  in  gardens,  which 
have  been  familiar  to  them  in  cities. 

As,  however,  it  is  an  indisputable  axiom,  that  there  are  laws  of 
taste  which  belong  to  the  country  and  country  life,  quite  distinct 
from  those  which  belong  to  town,  the  citizen  always  runs  into  cock- 
neyisms whan  he  neglects  these  laws.  And  what  we  would  gladly 
insist  upon,  therefore,  is  that  it  is  only  what  is  appropriate  and 
significant  in  the  country,  (or  what  is  equally  so  in  town  and 
country,)  that  can  be  adopted,  without  insulting  the  natural  grace 
and  freedom  of  umbrageous  trees  and  green  lawns. 

He  who  comes  from  a  city,  and  wishes  to  build  himself  a 
country-seat,  would  do  well  to  forget  all  that  he  considers  the  stand- 
ard of  excellence  in  houses  and  furniture  in  town,  (and  which  are, 
perhaps,  really  excellent  there,)  and  make  a  pilgrimage  of  inspection 
to  the  best  country  houses,  villas  and  cottages,  with  their  grounds, 
before  he  lays  a  stone  in  his  foundation  walls,  or  marks  a  curve  of 
his  walks.  If  he  does  this,  he  will  be  certain  to  open  his  eyes  to 
the  fact,  that,  though  there  are  good  models  in  town,  for  town  life, 
there  are  far  better  models  in  the  country,  for  country  life. 


V. 


ON  THE  IMPROVEMENT  OF  COUNTRY  VILLAGES. 

June,  1849. 

;'  TF  you,  or  any  man  of  taste,  wish  to  have  a  fit  of  the  blues,  let 

X  him  come  to  the  village  of  .    I  have  just  settled  here ; 

and  all  my  ideas  of  rural  beauty  have  been  put  to  flight  by  what  I 
see  around  me  every  day.  Old  wooden  houses  out  of  repair,  and 
looking  rickety  and  dejected ;  new  wooden  houses,  distressingly 
lean  in  their  proportions,  chalky  white  in  their  clapboards,  and 
spinachy  green  in  their  blinds.  The  church  is  absolutely  hideous, — 
a  long  box  of  card-board,  with  a  huge  pepper-box  on  the  top. 
There  is  not  a  tree  in  the  streets ;  and  if  it  were  not  for  fields  of  re- 
freshing verdure  that  surround  the  place,  I  should  have  the  ophthal- 
mia as  well  as  the  blue-devils.  Is  there  no  way  of  instilling  some 
rudiments  of  taste  into  the  minds  of  dwellers  in  remote  country 
places  ? " 

We  beg  our  correspondent,  from  whose  letter  we  quote  the  above 
paragraph,  not  to  despair.  There  are  always  wise  and  good  pur- 
poses hidden  in  the  most  common  events  of  life ;  and  we  have  no 
doubt  Providence  has  sent  him  to  the  village  of  ,  as  an  apos- 
tle of  taste,  to  instil  some  ideas  of  beauty  and  fitness  into  the 
minds  of  its  inhabitants. 

That  the  aspect  of  a  large  part  of  our  rural  villages,  out  of  New 
England,  is  distressing  to  a  man  of  taste,  is  undeniable.  Not  from 
want  of  means ;  for  the  inhabitants  of  these  villages  are  thriving, 
industrious  people,  and  poverty  is  very  little  known  there.  Not 
from  want  of  materials ;  for  both  nature  and  the  useful  arts  are 


230 


RURAL  ARCHITECTURE. 


ready  to  give  them  every  thing  needful,  to  impart  a  cheerful,  taste- 
ful, and  inviting  aspect  to  their  homes  ;  but  simply  from  a  poverty 
of  ideas,  and  a  dormant  sense  of  the  enjoyment  to  be  derived  from 
orderly,  tasteful,  and  agreeable  dwellings  and  streets,  do  these  villa- 
ges merit  the  condemnation  of  all  men  of  taste  and  right  feeling. 

The  first  duty  of  an  inhabitant  of  forlorn  neighborhoods,  like 

the  village  of  ,  is  to  use  all  possible  influence  to  have  the 

streets  planted  with  trees.  To  plant  trees,  costs  little  trouble  or  ex- 
pense to  each  property  holder  ;  and  once  planted,  there  is  some  as- 
surance that,  with  the  aid  of  time  and  nature,  we  can  at  least  cast 
a  graceful  veil  over  the  deformity  of  a  country  home,  if  we  cannot 
wholly  remodel  its  features.  Indeed,  a  village  whose  streets  are  bare 
of  trees,  ought  to  be  looked  upon  as  in  a  condition  not  less  pitiable 
than  a  community  without  a  schoolmaster,  or  a  teacher  of  religion ; 
for  certain  it  is,  when  the  affections  are  so  dull,  and  the  domestic 
virtues  so  blunt  that  men  do  not  care  how  their  own  homes  and  vil- 
lages look,  they  care  very  little  for  fulfilling  any  moral  obligations 
not  made  compulsory  by  the  strong  arm  of  the  law  ;  while,  on  the 
other  hand,  show  us  a  Massachusetts  village,  adorned  by  its  avenues 
of  elms,  and  made  tasteful  by  the  affection  of  its  inhabitants,  and 
you  also  place  before  us  the  fact,  that  it  is  there  where  order,  good 
character,  and  virtuous  deportment  most  of  all  adorn  the  lives  and 
daily  conduct  of  its  people. 

Our  correspondents  who,  like  the  one  just  quoted,  are  apostles 
of  taste,  must  not  be  discouraged  by  lukewarmness  and  opposition 
on  the  part  of  the  inhabitants  of  these  graceless  villages.  They 
must  expect  sneers  and  derision  from  the  ignorant  and  prejudiced  ; 
for,  strange  to  say,  poor  human  nature  does  not  love  to  be  shown 
that  it  is  ignorant  and  prejudiced ;  and  men  who  would  think  a  cow- 
shed good  enough  to  live  in,  if  only  their  wants  were  concerned, 
take  pleasure  in  pronouncing  every  man  a  visionary  whose  ideas 
rise  above  the  level  of  their  own  accustomed  vision.  But,  as  an  off- 
set to  this,  it  should  always  be  remembered  that  there  are  two  great 
principles  at  the  bottom  of  our  national  character,  which  the  apostle 
of  taste  in  the  most  benighted,  graceless  village,  may  safely 
count  upon.  One  of  these  is  the  principle  of  imitation,  which  will 
never  allow  a  Yankee  to  be  outdone  by  his  neighbors ;  and  the 


ON  THE  IMPROVEMENT  OF  COUNTRY  VILLAGES.  231 


other,  the  principle  of  progress,  which  will  not  allow  him  to  stand 
still  when  he  discovers  that  his  neighbor  has  really  made  an  im- 
provement. 

Begin,  then,  by  planting  the  first  half-dozen  trees  in  the  public 
streets.  "They  will  grow,"  as  Sir  Walter  observed,  "while  you 
sleep ;"  and  once  fairly  settled  in  their  new  congregation,  so  that 
they  get  the  use  of  their  arms,  and  especially  of  their  tongues,  it  is 
quite  extraordinary  what  sermons  they  will  preach  to  those  dull  and 
tasteless  villagers.  Not  a  breeze  that  blows,  but  you  will  hear  these 
tongues  of  theirs  (which  some  look  upon  merely  as  leaves),  whisper- 
ing the  most  eloquent  appeals  to  any  passer  by.  There  are  some, 
doubtless,  whose  auriculars  are  so  obtuse  they  they  do  not  un- 
derstand this  language  of  the  trees ;  but  let  even  one  of  these  walk 
home  in  a  hot  July  day,  when  the  sun  that  shines  on  the  American 
continent  has  a  face,  brighter  than  California  gold,  and  if  he  does 
not  return  thanks  devoutly  for  the  cool  shade  of  our  half-dozen  trees, 
as  he  approaches  them  and  rests  beneath  thei1*  cool  boughs,  then  is 
he  a  worse  heathen  than  any  piratical  Malay  of  the  Indian  Ocean. 
But  even  such  a  man  is  sometimes  convinced,  by  an  appeal  to  the 
only  chord  that  vibrates  in  the  narrow  compass  of  his  soul, — that 
of  utility, — when  he  sees  with  surprise  a  fine  row  of  trees  in  a  vil- 
lage, stretching  out  their  leafy  canopy  as  a  barrier  to  a  destructive 
fire,  that  otherwise  would  have  crossed  the  street  and  burnt  down 
the  other  half  of  the  best  houses  in  the  village. . 

The  next  step  to  improve  the  graceless  village,  is  to  persuade 
some  of  those  who  are  erecting  new  buildings,  to  adopt  more  taste- 
ful models.  And  by  this  we  mean,  not  necessarily  what  builders 
call  a  "  fancy  house,"  decorated  with  various  ornaments  that  are  sup- 
posed to  give  beauty  to  a  cottage ;  but  rather  to  copy  some  design, 
or  some  other  building,  where  good  proportions,  pleasing  form,  and 
fitness  for  the  use  intended,  give  the  beauty  sought  for,  without  call- 
ing in  the  aid  of  ornaments,  which  may  heighten  but  never  create 
beauty.  If  you  cannot  find  such  a  house  ready  built  to  copy  from, 
procure  works  where  such  designs  exist,  or,  still  better,  a  rough  and 
cheap  sketch  from  a  competent  architect,  as  a  guide.  Persuade 
your  neighbor,  who  is  about  to  build,  that  even  if  his  house  is  to 
cost  but  $600,  there  is  no  economy  that  he  can  practise  in  the  ex- 


232 


RURAL  ARCHITECTURE. 


penditure  of  that  sum  so  indisputable,  or  which,  he  will  so  com- 
pletely realize  the  value  of  afterwards,  as  $10  or  $20  worth  of  ad- 
vice, with  a  few  pen  or  pencil  marks,  to  fix  the  ideas,  upon  paper, 
from  an  architect  of  acknowledged  taste  and  judgment.  "Whether 
the  house  is  to  look  awkward  and  ugly,  or  whether  it  is  to  he  com- 
fortable and  pleasing  for  years,  all  depend  upon  the  idea  of  that 
house  which  previously  exists  in  somebody's  mind, — either  architect, 
owner,  or  mechanic, — whoever,  in  short,  conceives  what  that  house 
shall  be,  before  it  becomes  "  a  local  habitation,"  or  has  any  name 
among  other  houses  already  bom  in  the  hitherto  graceless  vil- 
lage. 

It  is  both  surprising  and  pleasant,  to  one  accustomed  to  watch 
the  development  of  the  human  soul,  to  see  the  gradual  but  certain 
effect  of  building  one  really  good  and  tasteful  house  in  a  graceless 
village.  Just  as  certain  as  there  is  a  dormant  spark  of  the  love  of 
beauty,  which  underlays  all  natures  extant,  in  that  village,  so  certain 
will  it  awaken  at  the  sight  of  that  house.  You  will  hear  nothing 
about  it ;  or  if  you  do,  perhaps  you  may,  at  first,  even  hear  all  kinds 

of  facetious  comments  on  Mr.  's  new  house.    But  next  year  you 

will  find  the  old  mode  abandoned  by  him  who  builds  a  new  house. 
He  has  a  new  idea  ;  he  strives  to  make  his  dwelling  manifest  it ; 
and  this  process  goes  on,  till,  by-and-by,  you  wonder  what  new 
genius  has  so  changed  the  aspect  of  this  village,  and  turned  its  neg- 
lected, bare,  and  lanky  streets  into  avenues  of  fine  foliage,  and 
streets  of  neat  and  tasteful  houses. 

It  is  an  old  adage,  that  "  a  cobbler's  family  has  no  shoes."  We 
are  forced  to  call  the  adage  up  for  an  explanation  of  the  curious 
fact,  that  in  five  villages  out  of  six  in  the  United  States,  there  does 
not  appear  to  have  been  room  enough  in  which  properly  to  lay  out 
the  streets  or  place  the  houses.  Why,  on  a  continent  so  broad  that 
the  mere  public  lands  amount  to  an  area  of  fifty  acres  for  every 
man,  woman,  and  child,  in  the  commonwealth,  there  should  not  be 
found  space  sufficient  to  lay  out  country  towns,  so  that  the  streets 
shall  be  wide  enough  for  avenues,  and  the  house-lots  broad  enough 
to  allow  sufficient  trees  and  shrubbery  to  give  a  little  privacy  and 
seclusion,  is  one  of  the  unexplained  phenomena  in  the  natural  his- 
tory of  our  continent,  which,  along  with  the  boulders  and  glaciers, 


ON  THE  IMPROVEMENT  OF  COUNTRY  VILLAGES.  233 


we  leave  to  the  learned  and  ingenious  Professor  Agassiz.  Certain 
it  is,  our  ancestors  did  not  bring  over  this  national  trait  from  Eng- 
land ;  for  in  that  small,  and  yet  great  kingdom,  not  larger  than  one 
of  our  largest  states,  there  is  one  city — London — which  has  more 
acres  devoted  to  public  parks,  than  can  be  numbered  for  this  pur- 
pose in  all  America. 

It  may  appear  too  soon  to  talk  of  village  greens,  and  village 
squares,  or  small  parks  planted  with  trees,  and  open  to  the  common 
enjoyment  of  the  inhabitants,  in  the  case  of  graceless  villages, 
where  there  is  yet  not  a  shade-tree  standing  in  one  of  the  streets. 
But  this  will  come  gradually ;  and  all  the  sooner,  just  in  proportion 
as  the  apostles  of  taste  multiply  in  various  parts  of  the  country. 
Persons  interested  in  these  improvements,  and  who  are  not  aware  of 
what  has  been  done  in  some  parts  of  New  England,  should  imme- 
diately visit  New  Haven  and  Springfield.  The  former  city  is  a 
bower  of  elms;  and  the  inhabitants  who  now  walk  beneath  spa- 
cious avenues,  of  this  finest  of  American  trees,  speak  with  gratitude 
of  the  energy,  public  spirit  and  taste  of  the  late  Mr.  Hillhouse,  who 
was  the  great  apostle  of  taste  for  that  city,  years  ago,  when  the 
streets  were  as  bare  as  those  of  the  most  graceless  villages  in  the 
land.  And  what  stranger  has  passed  through  Springfield,  and  not 
recognized  immediately  a  superior  spirit  in  the  place,  which  long 
since  suggested  and  planted  the  pretty  little  square  which  now  orna- 
ments the  town  ? 

But  we  should  be  doing  injustice  to  the  principle  of  progress,  to 
which  we  have  already  referred,  if  we  did  not  mention  here  the 
signs  of  the  times,  which  we  have  lately  noticed;  signs  that  prove 
the  spirit  of  rural  improvement  is  fairly  awake  over  this  broad  con- 
tinent. We  have  received  accounts,  within  the  last  month,  of  the 
doings  of  ornamental  tree  associations,  lately  formed  in  five  different 
states,  from  New  Hampshire  to  Tennessee.*  The  object  of  these 
associations  is  to  do  precisely  what  nobody  in  particular  thinks  it 
his  business  to  do ;  that  is,  to  rouse  the  public  mind  to  the  impor- 

*  We  cannot  deny  ourselves  the  pleasure  of  commending  the  public 
spirit  of  a  gentleman  in  one  of  the  villages  in  western  New  York,  who,  by 
offering  a  bounty  for  all  trees  planted  in  the  village  where  he  lives,  has  in- 
duced many  to  set  about  the  work  in  good  earnest 


234 


RURAL  ARCHITECTURE. 


tance  of  embellishing  the  streets  of  towns  and  villages,  and  to 
induce  everybody  to  plant  trees  in  front  of  his  own  premises. 

While  we  are  writing  this,  we  have  received  the  printed  report 
of  one  of  these  associations, — The  Rockingham  Farmers'  Club,  of 
Exeter,  New  Hampshire.  The  whole  report  is  so  much  to  the  point, 
that  we  republish  it  entire  in  our  Domestic  Notices  of  the  month ; 
but  there  is  so  much  earnest  enthusiasm  in  the  first  paragraph  of 
the  report,  and  it  is  so  entirely  apposite  to  our  present  remarks,  that 
we  must  also  introduce  it  here : 

"  Why  are  not  the  streets  of  all  our  villages  shaded  and  adorned 
with  trees  ?  Why  are  so  many  of  our  dwellings  still  unprotected 
from  the  burning  heat  of  summer,  and  the  '  pelting  of  the  pitiless 
storms'  of  winter  ?  Is  it  because  in  New  England  hearts,  hurried 
and  pressed  as  they  are  by  care  and  business,  there  is  no  just  appre- 
ciation of  the  importance  of  the  subject  ?  Or  is  it  that  failure  in 
the  attempt,  which  almost  every  man  has  made,  once  in  his  life,  in 
this  way  to  ornament  his  home,  has  led  many  to  the  belief  that 
there  is  some  mystery,  passing  the  comprehension  of  common  men, 
about  this  matter  of  transplanting  trees  ?  The  answer  may  be 
found,  we  apprehend,  partly  in  each  of  the  reasons  suggested.  Ask 
your  neighbor  why  he  has  not  more  trees  about  his  home,  and  he 
will  tell  you  that  they  are  of  no  great  use,  and,  besides,  that  it  is 
very  difficult  to  make  them  grow ;  that  he  has  tried  it  once  or 
twice,  and  they  have  all  died.  Now  these,  the  common  reasons, 
are  both  ill-founded.  It  is  of  use  for  every  man  to  surround  him- 
self with  objects  of  interest,  to  cultivate  a  taste  for  the  beautiful  in 
all  things,  and  especially  in  the  works  of  nature.  It  is  of  use  for 
every  family  to  have  a  home,  a  pleasant,  happy  home,  hallowed  by 
purifying  influences.  It  is  of  use,  that  every  child  should  be  edu- 
cated, not  only  in  sciences,  and  arts,  and  dead  languages,  but  that 
his  affections  and  his  taste  should  be  developed  and  refined ;  that 
the  book  of  nature  should  be  laid  open  to  him ;  and  that  he  should 
learn  to  read  her  language  in  the  flower  and  the  leaf,  written  every- 
where, in  the  valley  and  on  the  hill-side,  and  hear  it  in  the  songs  of 
birds,  and  the  murmuring  of  the  forest.  If  you  would  keep  pure 
the  heart  of  your  child,  and  make  his  youth  innocent  and  happy, 
surround  him  with  objects  of  interest  and  beauty  at  home.    If  you 


ON  THE  IMPROVEMENT  OF  COUNTRY  VILLAGES.      ,  235 


would  prevent  a  restless  spirit,  if  you  would  save  him  from  that 
lowest  species  of  idolatry,  '  the  love  of  money,'  and  teaeh  him  to 
'  love  what  is  lovely,'  adorn  your  dwellings,  your  places  of  worship, 
your  school-houses,  your  streets  and  public  squares,  with  trees  and 
hedges,  and  lawns  and  flowers,  so  that  his  heart  may  early  and  ever 
be  impressed  with  the  love  of  Him  who  made  them  all."  *  * 
What  more  can  we  add  to  this  eloquent  appeal  from  the  com- 
mittee of  a  farmers'  club  in  a  village  of  New  Hampshire  ?  Only 
to  entreat  other  farmers'  clubs  to  go  and  do  likewise  ;  other  orna- 
mental tree  societies  to  carry  on  the  good  work  of  adorning  the 
country ;  other  apostles  of  taste  not  to  be  discouraged,  but  to  be 
unceasing  in  their  efforts,  till  they  see  the  clouds  of  ignorance  and 
prejudice  dispersing ;  and,  finally,  all  who  live  in  the  country  and 
have  an  affection  for  it,  to  take  hold  of  this  good  work  of  rural  im- 
provement, till  not  a  graceless  village  can  be  found  from  the 
Penobscot  to  the  Eio  Grande,  or  a  man  of  intelligence  who  is  not 
ashamed  to  be  found  living  in  such  a  village. 


VL 


OUR  COUNTRY  VILLAGES. 


June,  1850. 


'ITHOUT  any  boasting,  it  may  safely  be  said,  that  the  natural 


V  V  features  of  our  common  country  (as  the  speakers  in  Congress 
call  her),  are  as  agreeable  and  prepossessing  as  those  of  any  other 
land — whether  merry  England,  la  belle  France,  or  the  German 
fatherland.  We  have  greater  lakes,  larger  rivers,  broader  and  more 
fertile  prairies  than  the  old  "world  can  show  ;  and  if  the  Alleghanies 
are  rather  dwarfish  when  compared  to  the  Alps,  there  are  peaks  and 
summits,  "  castle  hills  "  and  volcanoes,  in  our  great  back-bone  range 
of  the  Pacific — the  Rocky  Mountains — which  may  safely  bold  up 
their  heads  along  with  Mont  Blanc  and  the  Jungfrau. 

Providence,  then,  has  blessed  this  country — our  country — with 
"natural  born"  features,  which  we  may  look  upon  and  be  glad. 
But  how  have  we  sought  to  defonn  the  fair  landscape  here  and  there 
by  little,  miserable  shabby-looking  towns  and  villages ;  not  misera- 
ble and  shabby-looking  from  the  poverty  and  wretchedness  of  the 
inhabitants — for  in  no  land  is  there  more  peace  and  plenty — but 
miserable  and  shabby-looking  from  the  absence  of  taste,  symmetry, 
order,  space,  proportion, — all  that  constitutes  beauty.  Ah,  well  and 
truly  did  Cowper  say, 


"  God  made  the  country,  but  man  made  the  town." 


For  in  the  one,  we  every  where  see  utility  and  beauty  harmoniously 


OUR  COUNTRY  VILLAGES.  237 

combined,  while  the  other  presents  us  but  too  often  the  reverse ; 
that  is  to  say,  the  marriage  of  utility  and  deformity. 

Some  of  our  readers  may  remind  us  that  we  have  already 
preached  a  sermon  from  this  text.  No  matter;  we  should  be  glad 
to  preach  fifty ;  yes,  or  even  establish  a  sect, — as  that  seems  the  only 
way  of  making  proselytes  now, — whose  duty  it  should  be  to  convert 
people  living  in  the  country  towns  to  the  true  faith ;  we  mean  the 
true  rural  faith,  viz.,  that  it  is  immoral  and  uncivilized  to  live  in 
mean  and  uncouth  villages,  where  there  is  no  poverty,  or  want  of 
intelligence  in  the  inhabitants ;  that  there  is  nothing  laudable  in 
having  a  piano-forte  and  mahogany  chairs  in  the  parlor,  where  the 
streets  outside  are  barren  of  shade  trees,  destitute  of  side-walks,  and 
populous  with  pigs  and  geese. 

We  are  bound  to  admit  (with  a  little  shame  and  humiliation, — 
being  a  native  of  New-York,  the  "  Empire  State"),  that  there  is 
one  part  of  the  Union  where  the  millennium  of  country  towns,  and 
good  government,  and  rural  taste  has  not  only  commenced,  but  is  in 
full  domination.  We  mean,  of  course,  Massachusetts.  The  travel- 
ler may  go  from  one  end  of  that  State  to  the  other,  and  find  flourish- 
ing villages,  with  broad  streets  lined  with  maples  and  elms,  behind 
which  are  goodly  rows  of  neat  and  substantial  dwellings,  full  of  evi- 
dences of  order,  comfort  and  taste.  Throughout  the  whole  State,  no 
animals  are  allowed  to  run  at  large  in  the  streets  of  towns  and  vil- 
lages. Hence  so  much  more  cleanliness  than  elsewhere ;  so  much 
more  order  and  neatness  ;  so  many  more  pretty  rural  lanes ;  so  many 
inviting  flower-gardens  and  orchards — only  separated  from  the  passer- 
by by  a  low  railing  or  hedge,  instead  of  a  formidable  board  fence. 
Now,  if  you  cross  the  State  fine  into  New- York — a  State  of  far 
greater  wealth  than  Massachusetts,  as  long  settled  and  nearly  as  pop- 
ulous— you  feel  directly  that  you  are  in  the  land  of  "  pigs  and  poul- 
try," in  the  least  agreeable  sense  of  the  word.  In  passing  through 
villages  and  towns,  the  truth  is  still  more  striking,  as  you  go  to  the 
south  and  west ;  and  you  feel  little  or  nothing  of  that  sense,  of 
"  how  pleasant  it  must  be  to  live  here,"  which  the  traveller  through 
Berkshire,  or  the  Connecticut  valley,  or  the  pretty  villages  about 
Boston,  feels  moving  his  heart  within  him.  You  are  rather  inclined 
to  wish  there  were  two  new  commandments,  viz. :  thou  shalt  plant 


238 


RURAL  ARCHITECTURE. 


trees,  to  hide  the  nakedness  of  the  streets ;  and  thou  shalt  not  keep 
pigs — except  in  the  back  yard !  * 

Our  more  reflective  and  inquiring  readers  will  naturally  ask,  why 
is  this  better  condition  of  things — a  condition  that  denotes  better 
citizens,  better  laws,  and  higher  civilization — confined  almost  wholly 
to  Massachusetts  ?  To  save  them  an  infinite  deal  of  painstaking,  re- 
search and  investigation,  we  will  tell  them  in  a  few  words.  That 
State  is  better  educated  than  the  rest.  She  sees  the  advantage,  mor- 
ally and  socially,  of  orderly,  neat,  tasteful  villages ;  in  producing 
better  citizens,  in  causing  the  laws  to  be  respected,  in  making  homes 
dearer  and  more  sacred,  in  making  domestic  life  and  the  enjoyment 
of  property  to  be  more  truly  and  rightly  estimated. 

And  these  are  the  legitimate  and  natural  results  of  this  kind  of 
improvement  we  so  ardently  desire  in  the  outward  life  and  appear- 
ance of  rural  towns.  If  our  readers  suppose  us  anxious  for  the  build- 
ing of  good  houses,  and  the  planting  of  street  avenues,  solely  that 
the  countiy  may  look  more  beautiful  to  the  eye,  and  that  the  taste 
shall  be  gratified,  they  do  us  an  injustice.  This  is  only  the  external 
sign  by  which  we  would  have  the  country's  health  and  beauty 
known,  as  we  look  for  the  health  and  beauty  of  its  fair  daughters  in 
the  presence  of  the  rose  on  their  cheeks.  But  as  the  latter  only 
blooms  lastingly  there,  when  a  good  constitution  is  joined  with 
healthful  habits  of  mind  and  body,  so  the  tasteful  appearance  which 
we  long  for  in  our  countiy  towns,  we  seek  as  the  outward  mark 
of  education,  moral  sentiment,  love  of  home,  and  refined  cultiva- 
tion, which  makes  the  main  difference  between  Massachusetts  and 
Madagascar. 

We  have,  in  a  former  number,  said  something  as  to  the  practi- 
cal manner  in  which  " graceless  villages"  may  be  improved.  We 
have  urged  the  force  of  example  in  those  who  set  about  improving 

*  We  believe  we  must  lay  this  latter  sin  at  the  doors  of  our  hard-working 
emigrants  from  the  Emerald  Isle.  Wherever  they  settle,  they  cling  to  their 
ancient  fraternity  of  porkers;  and  think  it  "no  free  country  where  pig» 
can't  have  their  liberty."  Newburgh  is  by  no  means  a  well-planned  village, 
though  scarcely  surpassed  for  scenery;  but  we  believe  it  may  claim  the 
credit  of  being  the  only  one  among  all  the  towns,  cities  and  villages  of  Xew- 
York,  where  pigs  and  geese  have  not  the  freedom  of  the  streets. 


OUR  COUNTRY  VILLAGES. 


239 


their  own  property,  and  shown  the  influence  of  even  two  or  three 
persons  in  giving  an  air  of  civilization  and  refinement  to  the  streets 
and  suburbs  of  country  towns.  There  is  not  a  village  in  America, 
however  badly  planned  at  first,  or  ill-built  afterwards,  that  may  not 
be  redeemed,  in  a  great  measure,  by  the  aid  of  shade  trees  in  the 
streets,  and  a  little  shrubbery  in  the  front  yards,  and  it  is  never 
too  late  or  too  early  to  project  improvements  of  this  kind.  Every 
spring  and  every  autumn  should  witness  a  revival  of  associated 
efforts  on  the  part  of  select-men,  trustees  of  corporations,  and  persons 
of  means  and  influence,  to  adorn  and  embellish  the  external  condi- 
tion of  then  towns.  Those  least  alive  to  the  result  as  regards  beauty, 
may  be  roused  as  to  the  effects  of  increased  value  given  to  the  prop- 
erty thus  improved,  and  villages  thus  rendered  attractive  and  desi- 
rable as  places  of  residence. 

But  let  us  now  go  a  step  further  than  this.  In  no  country,  per- 
haps, are  there  so  many  new  villages  and  towns  laid  out  every  year 
as  in  the  United  States.  Indeed,  so  large  is  the  number,  that  the 
builders  and  projectors  are  fairly  at  a  loss  for  names, — ancient  and 
modem  history  having  been  literally  worn  threadbare  by  the  god- 
fathers, until  all  association  with  great  heroes  and  mighty  deeds  is 
fairly  beggared  by  this  re-christening  going  on  in  our  new  settle- 
ments and  future  towns,  as  yet  only  populous  to  the  extent  of  six 
houses.  And  notwithstanding  the  apparent  vastness  of  our  territory, 
the  growth  of  new  towns  and  new  States  is  so  wonderful — fifteen  or 
twenty  years  giving  a  population  of  hundreds  of  thousands,  where 
all  was  wilderness  before — that  the  plan  and  arrangement  of  new 
towns  ought  to  be  a  matter  of  national  importance.  And  yet,  to 
judge  by  the  manner  in  which  we  see  the  thing  done,  there  has  not, 
in  the  whole  duration  of  the  republic,  been  a  single  word  said,  or  a 
single  plan  formed,  calculated  to  embody  past  experience,  or  to 
assist  in  any  way  the  laying  out  of  a  village  or  town. 

We  have  been  the  more  struck  by  this  fact  in  observing  the 
efforts  of  some  companies  who  have  lately,  upon  the  Hudson,  within 
some  twenty  or  more  miles  of  New-York,  undertaken  to  lay  out 
rural  villages,  with  some  pretension  to  taste  and  comfort ;  and  aim, 
at  least,  at  combining  the  advantages  of  the  country  with  easy  rail- 
road access  to  them. 


240 


RURAL  ARCHITECTURE. 


Our  readers  most  interested  in  such  matters  as  this  (and,  taking 
our  principal  cities  together,  it  is  a  pretty  large  class),  will  be  inter- 
ested to  know  what  is  the  beau-ideal  of  these  companies,  who  un- 
dertake to  buy  tracts  of  land,  lay  them  out  in  the  best  manner,  and 
form  the  most  complete  and  attractive  rural  villages,  in  order  to 
tempt  those  tired  of  the  wayworn  life  of  sidewalks,  into  a  neighbor- 
hood where,  without  losing  society,  they  can  see  the  horizon,  breathe 
the  fresh  air,  and  walk  upon  elastic  greensward. 

Well,  the  beau-ideal  of  these  newly-planned  villages  is  not  down 
to  the  zero  of  dirty  lanes  and  shadeless  roadsides  ;  but  it  rises,  we 
are  sorry  to  say,  no  higher  than  streets,  lined  on  each  side  with 
shade-trees,  and  bordered  with  rows  of  houses.  For  the  most  part, 
those  houses — cottages,  we  presume — are  to  be  built  on  fifty-feet 
lots  ;  or  if  any  buyer  is  not  satisfied  with  that  amount  of  elbow  room, 
he  may  buy  two  lots,  though  certain  that  his  neighbor  will  still  be 
within  twenty  feet  of  his  fence.  And  this  is  the  sum  total  of  the 
rural  beauty,  convenience,  and  comfort,  of  the  latest  plan  for  a  rural 
village  in  the  Union.*  The  buyer  gets  nothing  more  than  he  has 
in  town,  save  his  little  patch  of  back  and  front  yard,  a  little  peep 
down  the  street,  looking  one  way  at  the  river,  and  the  other  way  at 
the  sky.  So  far  from  gaining  any  thing  which  all  inhabitants  of  a 
village  should  gain  by  the  combination,  one  of  these  new  villagers 
actually  loses  ;  for  if  he  were  to  go  by  himself,  he  would  buy  land 
cheaper,  and  have  a  fresh  landscape  of  fields  and  hills  around  him, 
instead  of  houses  on  all  sides,  almost  as  closely  placed  as  in  the  city, 
which  he  has  endeavored  to  fly  from. 

Now  a  rural  village — newly  planned  in  the  suburbs  of  a  great 
city,  and  planned,  too,  specially  for  those  whose  circumstances  will 
allow  them  to  own  a  tasteful  cottage  in  such  a  village — should  pre- 
sent attractions  much  higher  than  this.  It  should  aim  at  something 
higher  than  mere  rows  of  houses  upon  streets  crossing  each  other  at 
right  angles,  and  bordered  with  shade-trees.  Any  one  may  find  as 
good  shade-trees,  and  much  better  houses,  in  certain  streets  of  the 
city  which  he  leaves  behind  him  ;  and  if  he  is  to  give  up  fifty  con- 

*  We  say  plan,  but  we  do  not  mean  to  include  in  this  such  villages  as 
Northampton,  Brookline,  &c,  beautiful  and  tasteful  as  they  are.  But  they 
are  in  Massachusetts ! 


OUR  COUNTRY  VILLAGES. 


241 


veniences  and  comforts,  long  enjoyed  in  town,  for  the  mere  fact  of 
fresh  air,  he  had  better  take  board  during  the  summer  months  in 
some  snug  farmhouse  as  before. 

The  indispensable  desiderata  in  rural  villages  of  this  kind,  are 
the  following :  1st,  a  large  open  space,  common,  or  park,  situated 
in  the  middle  of  the  village — not  less  than  twenty  acres  ;  and  better, 
if  fifty  or  more  in  extent.  This  should  be  well  planted  with  groups 
of  trees,  and  kept  as  a  lawn.  The  expense  of  mowing  it  would  be 
paid  by  the  grass  in  some  cases  ;  and  in  others,  a  considerable  part 
of  the  space  might  be  inclosed  with  a  wire  fence,  and  fed  by  sheep 
or  cows,  like  many  of  the  public  parks  in  England. 

This  park  would  be  the  nucleus  or  heart  of  the  village,  and 
would  give  it  an  essentially  rural  character.  Around  it  should  be 
grouped  all  the  best  cottages  and  residences  of  the  place ;  and  this 
would  be  secured  by  selling  no  lots  fronting  upon  it  of  less  than 
one-fourth  of  an  acre  in  extent.  Wide  streets,  with  rows  of  elms  or 
maples,  should  diverge  from  the  park  on  each  side,  and  upon  these 
streets  smaller  lots,  but  not  smaller  than  one  hundred  feet  front, 
should  be  sold  for  smaller  cottages.  ' 

In  this  way,  we  would  secure  to  our  village  a  permanent  rural 
character ;  first,  by  the  possession  of  a  large  central  space,  always 
devoted  to  park  or  pleasure-ground,  and  always  held  as  joint  pro- 
perty, and  for  the  common  use  of  the  whole  village  ;  second,  by  the 
imperative  arrangement  of  cottages  or  dwellings  around  it,  in  such 
a  way  as  to  secure  in  all  parts  of  the  village  sufficient  space,  view, 
circulation  of  air,  and  broad,  well-planted  avenues  of  shade-trees. 

■  After  such  a  village  was  built,  and  the  central  park  planted  a 
few  years,  the  inhabitants  would  not  be  contented  with  the  mere 
meadow  and  trees,  usually  called  a  park  in  this  country.  By  sub- 
mitting to  a  small  annual  tax  per  family,  they  could  turn  the  whole 
park,  if  small,  or  considerable  portions,  here  and  there,  if  large,  into 
pleasure-grounds.  In  the  latter,  there  would  be  collected,  by  the 
combined  means  of  the  village,  all  the  rare,  hardy  shrubs,  trees,  and 
plants,  usually  found  in  the  private  grounds  of  any  amateur  in 
America.  Beds  and  masses  of  ever-blooming  roses,  sweet-scented 
climbers,  and  the  richest  shrubs,  would  thus  be  open  to  the  enjoy- 
ment of  all  during  the  whole  growing  season.  Those'  who  had 
16 


242 


RURAL  ARCHITECTURE. 


neither  the  means,  time,  nor  inclination,  to  devote  to  the  culture  of 
private  pleasure-grounds,  could  thus  enjoy  those  which  belonged  to 
all.  Others  might  prefer  to  devote  their  own  garden  to  fruits  and 
vegetables,  since  the  pleasure-grounds,  which  belonged  to  all,  and 
which  all  would  enjoy,  would,  by  their  greater  breadth  and  magni- 
tude, offer  beauties  and  enjoyments  which  few  private  gardens  can 
give. 

The  next  step,  after  the  possession  of  such  public  pleasure- 
grounds,  would  be  the  social  and  common  enjoyment  of  them. 
Upon  the  well-mown  glades  of  lawn,  and  beneath  the  shade  of  the 
forest-trees,  would  be  formed  rustic  seats.  Little  arbors  would  be 
placed  near,  where  in  midsummer  evenings  ices  would  be  served  to 
all  who  wished  them.  And,  little  by  little,  the  musical  taste  of  the 
village  (with  the  help  of  those  good  musical  folks — the  German 
emigrants)  would  organize  itself  into  a  band,  which  would  occa- 
sionally delight  the  ears  of  all  frequenters  of  the  park  with  popular 
airs. 

Do  we  overrate  the  mentai  and  moral  influences  of  such  a  com- 
mon ground  of  entertainment  as  this,  when  we  say  that  the  inhabit- 
ants of  such  a  village — enjoying  in  this  way  a  common  interest  in 
flowers,  trees,  the  fresh  air,  and  sweet  music,  daily — would  have 
something  more  healthful  than  the  ordinary  life  of  cities,  and  more 
refining  and  elevating  than  the  common  gossip  of  country  villages  ? 

"  Ah  !  I  see,  Mr.  Editor,  you  are  a  bit  of  a  communist."  By  no 
means.  On  the  contrary,  we  believe,  above  all  things  under  heaven, 
in  the  power  and  virtue  of  the  individual  home.  We  devote  our 
life  and  humble  efforts  to  raising  its  condition.  But  people  must 
live  in  towns  and  villages,  and  therefore  let  us  raise  the  condition 
of  towns  and  villages,  and  especially  of  rural  towns  and  villages,  by 
all  possible  means ! 

But  we  are  republican  ;  and,  shall  we  confess  it,  we  are  a  little 
vexed  that  as  a  people  generally,  we  do  not  see  how  much  in  Amer- 
ica we  lose  by  not  using  the  advantages  of  republicanism.  We 
mean  now,  for  refined  culture,  physical  comfort,  and  the  like.  Re- 
publican education  we  are  now  beginning  pretty  well  to  understand 
the  value  of ;  and  it  will  not  be  long  before  it  will  be  hard  to  find  a 
native  citizen  who  cannot  read  and  write.    And  this  comes  by 


OUR  COUNTRY  VILLAGES. 


243 


making  every  man  see  what  a  great  moral  and  intellectual  good 
comes  from  cheerfully  bearing  a  part  in  the  burden  of  popular  edu- 
cation. Let  us  next  take  up  popular  refinement  in  the  arts,  manners, 
social  fife,  and  innocent  enjoyments,  and  we  shall  see  what  a  virtuous 
and  educated  republic  can  really  become. 

Besides  this,  it  is  the  proper  duty  of  the  state — that  is,  the  people 
— to  do  in  this  way  what  the  reigning  power  does  in  a  monarchy. 
If  the  kings  and  princes  in  Germany,  and  the  sovereign  of  England, 
have  made  magnificent  parks  and  pleasure-gardens,  and  thrown 
tbem  wide  open  for  the  enjoyment  of  all  classes  of  the  people  (the 
latter,  after  all,  having  to  pay  for  it),  may  it  not  be  that  our  sover- 
eign people  will  (far  more  cheaply,  as  they  may)  make  and  support 
these  great  and  healthy  sources  of  pleasure  and  refinement  for 
themselves  in  America  ?  We  believe  so  ;  and  we  confidently  wait 
for  the  time  when  public  parks,  public  gardens,  public  galleries,  and 
tasteful  villages,  shall  be  among  the  peculiar  features  of  our  happy 
republic. 


VH. 

ON  SIMPLE  RURAL  COTTAGES. 

September,  1846. 

THE  simple  rural  cottage,  or  the  Working  Maris  Cottage,  deserves 
some  serious  consideration,  and  we  wish  to  call  the  attention 
of  our  readers  to  it  at  this  moment.  The  pretty  suburban  cottage, 
and  the  ornamented  villa,  are  no  longer  vague  and  rudimentary 
ideas  in  the  minds  of  our  people.  The  last  five  years  have  produced 
in  the  environs  of  all  our  principal  towns,  in  the  Eastern  and  Middle 
States,  some  specimens  of  tasteful  dwellings  of  this  class,  that  would 
be  considered  beautiful  examples  of  rural  architecture  in  any  part 
of  the  world.  Our  attention  has  been  called  to  at  least  a  dozen 
examples  lately,  of  rural  edifices,  altogether  charming  and  in  the 
best  taste. 

In  some, parts  of  the  country,  the  inhabitants  of  the  .suburbs  of 
towns  appear,  indeed,  almost  to  have  a  mania  on  the  subject  of  or- 
namental cottages.  "Weary  of  the  unfitness  and  the  uncouthness  of 
the  previous  models,  and  inspired  with  some  notions  of -rural'  Gothic, 
they  have  seized  it  with  a  kind  of  frenzy,  and  carpenters,  distracted 
with  verge-hoards  and  gables,  have,  in  some  cases,  made  sad  work 
of  the  picturesque.  Here  and  there  we  see  a  really  good  and  well- 
proportioned  ornamental  dwelling.  But  almost  in  the  immediate 
neighborhood  of  it,  soon  spring  up  tasteless  and  meagre  imitations, 
the  absurdity  of  whose  effect  borders  upon  a  caricature. 

Notwithstanding  this  deplorably  bad  taste,  rural  architecture  is 
making  a  progress  in  the  United  States  that  is  really  wonderful. 
Among  the  many  failures  in  cottages,  there  are  some  very  success- 


ON  SIMPLE  RURAL  COTTAGES. 


245 


ful  attempts,  and  every  rural  dwelling,  really  well  designed  and  ex- 
ecuted, has  a  strong  and  positive  effect  upon  the  good  taste  of  the 
whole  country. 

There  is,  perhaps,  a  more  intuitive  judgment — we  mean  a  natu- 
ral and  instinctive  one — in  the  popular  mind,  regarding  architecture, 
than  any  other  one  of  the  fine  arts.  We  have  known  many  men, 
who  could  not  themselves  design  a  good  common  gate,  who  yet  felt 
truly,  and  at  a  glance,  the  beauty  of  a  well-proportioned  and  taste- 
ful house,  and  the  deformity  of  one  whose  proportions  and  details 
were  bad.  Why  then  are  there  so  many  failures  in  building  orna- 
mental cottages? 

We  imagine  the  answer  to  this  lies  plainly  in  the  fact,  that  the 
most  erroneous  notions  prevail  respecting  the  proper  use  of  decora- 
tion in  rural  architecture. 

It  is  the  most  common  belief  and  practice,  with  those  whose 
taste  is  merely  borrowed,  and  not  founded  upon  any  clearly  defined 
principles,  that  it  is  only  necessary  to  adopt  the  ornaments  of  a  cer- 
tain building,  or  a  certain  style  of  building,  to  produce  the  best  effect 
of  the  style  or  building  in  question.  But  so  far  is  this  from  being  the 
true  mode  of  attaining  this  result,  that  in  eveiy  case  where  it  is  adopt- 
ed, as  we  perceive  at  a  glance,  the  result  is  altogether  unsatisfactory. 

Ten  years  ago  the  mock-Grecian  fashion  was  at  its  height.  Per- 
haps nothing  is  more  truly  beautiful  than  the  pure  and  classical 
Greek  temple — so  perfect  in  its  proportions,  so  chaste  and  harmo- 
nious in  its  decorations.  It  is  certainly  not  the  best  style  for  a  coun- 
try house ;  but  still  we  have  seen  a  few  specimens  in  this  country, 
of  really  beautiful  villas,  in  this  style — where  the  proportions  of  the 
whole,  and  the  admirable  completeness  of  all  the  parts,  executed  on 
a  fitting  scale,  produced  emotions  of  the  highest  pleasure. 

But,  alas !  no  sooner  were  there  a  few  specimens  of  the  classical 
style  in  the  country,  than  the  Greek  temple  mania  became  an  epi- 
demic. Churches,  banks,  and  court-houses,  one  could  very  well  bear 
to  see  Vitruvianized.  Their  simple  uses  and  respectable  size  bore 
well  the  honors  which  the  destiny  of  the  day  forced  upon  them. 
But  to  see  the  five  orders  applied  to  every  other  building,  from  the 
rich  merchant's  mansion  to  the  smallest  and  meanest  of  all  edifices, 
was  a  spectacle  which  made  even  the  warmest  admirers  of  Vitruvius 


246 


RURAL  ARCHITECTURE. 


sad,  and  would  have  made  a  true  Greek  believe  that  the  gods  who 
preside  over  beauty  and  harmony,  had  for  ever  abandoned  the  new 
world  ! 

But  the  Greek  temple  disease  has  passed  its  -crisis.  The  people 
have  survived  it.  Some  few  buildings  of  simple  forms,  and  conve- 
nient arrangements,  that  stood  here  and  there  over  the  country,  ut- 
tering silent  rebukes,  perhaps  had  something  to  do  with  bringing  us 
to  just  notions  of  fitness  and  propriety.  Many  of  the  perishable 
wooden  porticoes  have  fallen  down  ;  many  more  will  soon  do  so ; 
and  many  have  been  pulled  down,  and  replaced  by  less  pretending 
piazzas  or  verandas. 

Yet  we  are  now  obliged  to  confess  that  we  see  strong  symptoms 
manifesting  themselves  of  a  second  disease,  which  is  to  disturb  the 
architectural  growth  of  our  people.  We  feel  that  we  shall  not  be 
able  to  avert  it,  but  perhaps,  by  exhibiting  a  diagnosis  of  the  symp- 
toms, we  may  prevent  its  extending  so  widely  as  it  might  other- 
wise do. 

We  allude  to  the  mania  just  springing  up  for  a  kind  of  spurious 
rural  Gothic  cottage.  It  is  nothing  more  than  a  miserable  wooden 
thing,  tricked  out  with  flimsy  verge-boards,  and  unmeaning  gables. 
It  has  nothing  of  the  true  character  of  the  cottage  it  seeks  to  imi- 
tate. It  bears  the  same  relation  to  it  that  a  child's  toy-house  does 
to  a  real  and  substantial  habitation. 

If  we  inquire  into  the  cause  of  these  architectural  abortions, 
either  Grecian  or  Gothic,  we  shall  find  that  they  always  arise  from 
a  poverty  of  ideas  on  the  subject  of  style  in  architecture.  The  no- 
vice in  architecture  always  supposes,  when  he  builds  a  common 
house,  and  decorates  it  with  the  showiest  ornaments  of  a  certain 
style,  that  he  has  erected  an  edifice  in  that  style.  He  deludes  him- 
self in  the  same  manner  as  the  schoolboy  who,  with  his  gaudy  paper 
cap  and  tin  sword,  imagines  himself  a  great  general.  We  build  a 
miserable  shed,  make  one  of  its  ends  a  portico  with  Ionic  columns, 
and  call  it  a  temple  in  the  Greek  style.  At  the  same  time,  it  has 
none  of  the  proportions,  nothing  of  the  size,  sohdity,  and  perfection 
of  details,  and  probably  few  or  none  of  the  remaining  decorations 
of  that  style. 

So  too,  we  now  see  erected  a  wooden  cottage  of  a  few  feet  in 


ON  SIMPLE  RURAL  COTTAGES. 


247 


length,  gothicized  by  the  introduction  of  three  or  four  pointed  win- 
dows, little  gables  enough  for  a  residence  of  the  first  class,  and  a 
profusion  of  thin,  scolloped  verge-boards,  looking  more  like  card  or- 
naments, than  the  solid,  heavy,  carved  decorations  proper  to  the 
style  imitated. 

Let  those  who  wish  to  avoid  such  exhibitions  of  bad  taste,  recur 
to  some  just  and  correct  principles  on  this  subject. 

One  of  the  soundest  maxims  ever  laid  down  on  this  subject,  by 
our  lamented  friend  Loudon,  (who  understood  its  principles  as  well 
as  any  one  that  ever  wrote  on  this  subject),  was  the  following : 
"Nothing  should  be  introduced  into  any  cottage  design,  however 
ornamental  it  may  appear,  that  is  at  variance  with  propriety,  com- 
fort, or  sound  ivorlcmanshipP 

The  chiefest  objection  that  we  make  to  these  over-decorated 
cottages  of  very  small  size,  (which  we  have  now  in  view,)  is  that 
the  introduction  of  so  much  ornament  is  evidently  a  violation  of 
the  principles  of  propriety. 

It  cannot  be  denied  by  the  least  reflective  mind,  that  there  are 
several  classes  of  dwelling-houses  in  every  country.  The  mansion  of 
the  wealthy  proprietor,  which  is  filled  with  pictures  and  statues, 
ought  certainly  to  have  a  superior  architectural  character  to  the 
cottage  of  the  industrious  workingman,  who  is  just  able  to  furnish 
a  comfortable  home  for  his  family.  While  the  first  is  allowed  to 
display  even  an  ornate  style  of  building,  which  his  means  will  en- 
able him  to  complete  and  render  somewhat  perfect — the  other  can- 
not adopt  the  same  ornaments  without  rendering  a  cottage,  which 
might  be  agreeable  and  pleasing,  from  its  fitness  and  genuine  sim- 
plicity, offensive  and  distasteful  through  its  ambitious,  borrowed 
decorations. 

By  adopting  such  ornaments  they  must  therefore  violate  pro- 
priety, because,  architecturally,  it  is  not  fitting  that  the  humble  cot- 
tage should  wear  the  decorations  of  a  superior  dwelling,  any  more 
than  that  the  plain  workingman  should  wear  the  same  diamonds 
that  represent  the  superfluous  wealth  of  his  neighbor.  In  a  cot- 
tage of  the  smallest  size,  it  is  evident,  also,  that,  if  its  tenant  is  the 
owner,  he  must  make  some  sacrifice  of  comfort  to  produce  effect ; 
and  he  waives  the  principle  which  demands  sound  workmanship, 


248 


RURAL  ARCHITECTURE. 


since  to  adopt  any  highly  ornamental  style,  the  possessor  of  small 
means  is  obliged  to  make  those  ornaments  flimsy  and  meagre, 
which  ought  to  be  substantial  and  carefully  executed. 

Do  we  then  intend  to  say,  that  the  humble  cottage  must  be  left 
bald  and  tasteless  ?  By  no  means.  We  desire  to  see  every  rural 
dwelling  in  America  tasteful.  When  the  intelligence  of  our  active- 
minded  people  has  been  turned  in  this  direction  long  enough,  we 
are  confident  that  this  country  will  more  abound  in  beautiful  rural 
dwellings  than  any  other  part  of  the  world.  But  we  wish  to  see 
the  workingman's  cottage  made  tasteful  in  a  simple  and  fit  man- 
ner. We  wish  to  see  him  eschew  all  ornaments  that  are  inappro- 
priate and  unbecoming,  and  give  it  a  simple  and  pleasing  character 
by  the  use  of  truthful  means. 

For  the  cottage  of  this  class,  we  would  then  entirely  reject  all 
attempts  at  columns  or  verge-boards.*  If  the  owner  can  afford  it, 
we  would,  by  all  means,  have  a  veranda  (piazza),  however  small ; 
for  we  consider  that  feature  one  affording  the  greatest  comfort.  If 
the  cottage  is  of  wood,  we  would  even  build  it  with  strong  rough 
boards,  painting  and  sanding  the  same. 

We  would,  first  of  all,  give  our  cottage  the  best  ■proportions. 
It  should  not  be  too  narrow ;  it  should  not  be  too  high.  These  are 
the  two  prevailing  faults  with  us.  After  giving  it  an  agreeable  pro- 
portion— which  is  the  highest  source  of  all  material  beauty — we 
would  give  it  something  more  of  character  as  well  as  comfort,  by 
extending  the  roof.  Nothing  is  pleasanter  to  the  eye  than  the 
shadow  afforded  by  a  projecting  eave.  It  is  nearly  impossible  that 
a  house  should  be  quite  ugly,  with  an  amply  projecting  roof :  as  it 
is  difficult  to  render  a  simple  one  pleasing,  when  it  is  narrow  and 
pinched  about  the  eaves. 

After  this,  we  would  bestow  a  little  character  by  a  bold  and 
simple  dressing,  or  facing,  about  the  windows  and  doors.  The 

*  Of  course,  these  remarks  regarding  decoi-ations  do  not  apply  strictly 
to  the  case  of  cottages  for  the  tenants,  gardeners,  farmers,  etc,  of  a  large 
estate.  In  that  case,  such  dwellings  form  parte  of  a  highly  finished  whole. 
The  means  of  the  proprietor  are  sufficient  to  render  them  complete  of  then" 
kind.  Yet  even  in  this  case,  we  much  prefer  a  becoming  simplicity  in  tho 
cottages  of  such  a  demesne. 


ON  SIMPLE  RURAL  COTTAGES. 


249 


chimneys  may  next  be  attended  to.  Let  them  be  less  clumsy  and 
heavy,  if  possible,  than  usual. 

This  would  be  character  enough  for  the  simplest  class  of  cot- 
tages. We  would  rather  aim  to  render  them  striking  and  expres- 
sive by  a  good  outline,  and  a  few  simple  details,  than  by  the  imita- 
tion of  the  ornaments  of  a  more  complete  and  highly  finished  style 
of  building. 

In  figs.  1  and  2,  we  have  endeavored  to  give  two  views  of  a 
workingman's  cottage,  of  humble  means.* 

Whatever  may  be  thought  of  the  effect  of  these  designs,  (and 
we  assure  our  readers  that  they  appear  much  better  when  built 
than  upon  paper,)  we  think  it  will  not  be  denied,  that  they  have 
not  the  defects  to  which  we  have  just  alluded.  The  style  is  as  eco- 
nomical as  the  cheapest  mode  of  building ;  it  is  expressive  of  the 
simple  wants  of  its  occupant ;  and  it  is,  we  conceive,  not  without 
some  tasteful  character. 

Last,  though  not  least,  this  mode  of  building  cottages  is  well 
adapted  to  our  country.  The  material — wood — is  one  which  must, 
yet  for  some  years,  be  the  only  one  used  for  small  cottages.  The 
projecting  eaves  partially  shelter  the  building  from  our  hot  sun  and 
violent  storms  ;  and  the  few  simple  details,  which  may  be  said  to 
confer  something  of  an  ornamental  character,  as  the  rafter  brackets 
and  window  dressings,  are  such  as  obviously  grow  out  of  the  pri- 
mary conveniences  of  the  house — the  necessity  of  a  roof  for  shelter, 
and  the  necessity  of  windows  for  light. 

Common  narrow  siding,  (i.  e.  the  thin  clap-boarding  in  general 
use,)  we  would  not  employ  for  the  exterior  of  this  class  of  cottages 
— nor,  indeed,  for  any  simple  rural  buildings.  What  we  greatly 
prefer,  are  good  strong  and  sound  boards,  from  ten  to  fourteen 
inches  wide,  and  one  to  one  and  a  fourth  inches  thick.  These 
should  be  tongued  and  grooved  so  as  to  make  a  close  joint,  and 
nailed  to  the  frame  of  the  house  in  a  vertical  manner.  The  joint 
should  be  covered  on  the  outside  with  a  narrow  strip  of  inch  board, 
from  two  to  three  inches  wide.    The  accompanying  cut,  fig.  3,  a, 

*  "We  do  not  give  the  interior  plan  of  these,  at  present.  Our  only  ob- 
ject now  is  to  call  attention  to  the  exteriors  of  dwellings  of  this  class. 


250 


KURAL  ARCHITECTURE. 


showing  a  section  of  this  mode  of  weather-boarding  will  best  ex- 
plain it  to  the  reader. 

We  first  pointed  out  this  mode  of  covering,  in  our  "  Cottage 

Residences."  A  great 
number  of  gentlemen 
have  since  adopted  it, 
and  all  express  them- 
selves highly  gratified 
with  it.  It  is  by  far 
the  most  expressive 
and  agreeable  mode 
of  building  in  wood 
for  the  country  ;  it  is 
stronger,  equally  cheap 
and  much  more  dura- 
ble than  the  thin  sid. 
ing  ;  and  it  has  a  cha- 
racter of  strength  and 
permanence,  which,  to 

Fig.  3.  Cottage  Siding  and  Rootag.  ^  ^  ^ 

thin  boards  never  can  have.  When  filled  in  with  cheap  soft  brick, 
it  also  makes  a  very  warm  house. 

The  rafters  of  these  two  cottages  are  stout  joists,  placed  two  feet 
apart,  which  are  allowed  to  extend  beyond  the  house  two  feet,  to 
answer  the  purpose  of  brackets,  for  the  projecting  eaves.  Fig.  3,  b, 
will  show,  at  a  glance,  the  mode  of  rafter  boarding  and  shingling 
over  these  rafters,  so  as  to  form  the  simplest  and  best  kind  of 
roof.* 

The  window  dressings,  which  should  have  a  bold  and  simple 
character,  and  made  by  nailing  on  the  weather  boarding  stout 


*  The  simplest  mode  of  forming  an  eave  gutter  on  a  projecting  roof  like 
this,  is  shown  in  the  cut,  fig.  3  at  c.  It  consists  merely  of  a  tin  trough,  fast- 
ened to  the  roof  by  its  longer  portion,  which  extends  up  under  one  layer 
of  shingles.  This  lies  close  upon  the  roof.  The  trough  being  directly  over 
the  line  of  the  outer  face  of  the  house,  the  leader  d,  which  conveys  away 
the  water,  passes  down  in  a  straight  line,  avoiding  the  angles  necessary  in 
the  common  mode. 


ON  SIMPLE  RURAL  COTTAGES. 


251 


strips*  four  inches  wide,  fig.  4,  a,  of  plank,  one  inch  and  a  half  in 


thickness.  The  coping 
to  eight  inches  wide, 
supported  by  a  couple 
of  pieces  of  joists,  c, 
nailed  under  it  for 
brackets. 

We  have  tried  the 
effect  of  this  kind  of 
exterior,  using  un- 
planed  boards,  to 
which  we  have  given 
two  good  coats  of 
paint,  sanding  the 
second  coat.  The  ef- 
fect we  think  much 
more  agreeable— be- 
cause it  is  in  better 
keeping  with  a  rustic 
cottage,  than  when 
the  more  expensive 
mode  of  using  planed 
boards  is  resorted  to. 


,  b,  is  of  the  same  thickness,  and  six 


Fig.  4.  Cottage  Window  Dressing. 


Some  time  ago,  we  ventured  to  record  our  objections  to 
as  a  universal  color  for  country  houses.  We  have  had  great  satis- 
faction, since  that  time,  in  seeing  a  gradual  improvement  taking 
place  with  respect  to  this  matter.  Neutral  tints  are,  with  the  best 
taste,  now  every  where  preferred  to  strong  glaring  colors.  Cottages 
of  this  class,  we  would  always  paint  some  soft  and  pleasing  shade 
of  drab  or  fawn  color.  These  are  tints  which,  on  the  whole,  har- 
monize best  with  the  surrounding  hues  of  the  country  itself. 

These  two  little  designs  are  intended  for  the  simplest  cottages, 
to  cost  from  two  to  five  hundred  dollars.  Our  readers  will  not  un- 
derstand us  as  offering  them  as  complete  models  of  a  workingman's 
cottage.  They  are  only  partial  examples  of  our  views  and  taste  in 
this  matter.  We  ghall  continue  the  subject,  from  time  to  time, 
with  various  other  examples. 


vnt 


ON  THE  COLOR  OF  COUNTRY  HOUSES. 

May,  1847. 

CHARLES  DICKENS,  in  that  unlucky  visit  to  America,  in 
which  he  was  treated  like  a  spoiled  child,  and  left  it  in  the 
humor  that  often  follows  too  lavish  a  hestowal  of  sugar  plums  on 
spoiled  children,  made  now  and  then  a  remark  in  his  characteristic 
vein  of  subtle  perceptions.  Speaking  of  some  of  our  wooden  vil- 
lages— the  houses  as  bright  as  the  greenest  blinds  and  the  whitest 
weather-boarding  can  make  them — he  said  it  was  quite  impossible 
to  believe  them  real,  substantial  habitations.  They  looked  "  as  if 
they  had  been  put  up  on  Saturday  night,  and  were  to  be  taken  down 
on  Monday  morning  ! " 

There  is  no  wonder  that  any  tourist,  accustomed  to  the  quiet 
and  harmonious  color  of  buildings  in  an  English  landscape,  should 
be  shocked  at  the  glare  and  rawness  of  many  of  our  country  dwell- 
ings. Brown,  the  celebrated  English  landscape  gardener,  used  to 
say  of  a  new  red  brick  house,  that  it  would  "  put  a  whole  valley  in  a 
fever ! "  Some  of  our  freshly  painted  villages,  seen  in  a  bright  sum- 
mer day,  might  give  a  man  with  weak  eyes  a  fit  of  the  oph- 
thalmia. 

We  have  previously  ventured  a  word  or  two  against  this  na- 
tional passion  for  white  paint,  and  it  seems  to  us  a  fitting  moment 
to  look  the  subject  boldly  in  the  face  once  more. 

In  a  country  where  a  majority  of  the  houses  are  built  of  wood, 
the  use  of  some  paint  is  an  absolute  necessity  in  point  of  economy. 
What  the  colore  of  this  paint  are,  we  consider  a  matter  no  less  im- 
portant in  point  of  taste. 


ON  THE  COLOR  OF  COUNTRY  .  HOUSES. 


253 


Now,  genuine  white  lead  (the  color  nominally  used  for  most 
exteriors)  is  one  of  the  dearest  of  paints.*  It  is  not,  therefore, 
economy  which  leads  our  countrymen  into  such  a  dazzling  error. 
Some  mistaken  notions,  touching  its  good  effect,  in  connection  with 
the  country,  is  undoubtedly  at  the  bottom  of  it.  "  Give  me,"  says  a  re- 
tired citizen,  before  whose  eyes  red  brick  and  dusty  streets  have  been 
the  only  objects  for  years,  "give  me  a  white  house  with  bright  green 
blinds  in  the  country."  To  him,  white  is  at  once  the  newest,  clean- 
est, smartest,  and  most  conspicuous  color  which  it  is  possible  to 
choose  for  his  cottage  or  villa.  Its  freshness  and  newness  he  prizes 
as  a  clown  does  that  of  his  Sunday  suit,  the  more  the  first  day  after 
it  comes  from  the  tailor,  with  all  the  unsullied  gloss  and  glitter  of 
gilt  buttons.  To  possess  a  house  which  has  a  quiet  air,  as  though 
it  might  have  been  inhabited  and  well  taken  care  of  for  years,  is  no 
pleasure  to  him.  He  desires  every  one  to  know  that  he,  Mr.  Broad- 
cloth, has  come  into  the  country  and  built  a  new  house.  Nothing 
will  give  the  stamp  of  newness  so  strongly  as  white  paint.  Besides 
this,  he  does  not  wish  his  light  to  be  hidden  under  a  bushel.  He 
has  no  idea  of  leading  an  obscure  life  in  the  country.  Seclusion 
and  privacy  are  the  only  blue  devils  of  his  imagination.  He  wishes 
every  passer-by  on  the  river,  railroad,  or  highway,  to  see  and  know 
that  this  is  Mr.  Broadcloth's  villa.  It  must  be  conspicuous — there- 
fore it  is  painted  white. 

Any  one  who  has  watched  the  effect  of  example  in  a  country 
neighboshood,  does  not  need  to  be  told  that  all  the  small  dwellings 
that  are  built  the  next  season  after  Mr.  Broadcloth's  new  house,  are 
painted,  if  possible,  a  shade  whiter,  and  the  blinds  a  little  more  in- 
tensely verdant — what  the  painters  triumphantly  call  "French 
green."  There  is  no  resisting  the  fashion ;  those  who  cannot  afford 
paint  use  whitewash ;  and  whole  villages,  to  borrow  Miss  Miggs's 
striking  illustration,  look  like  "whitenin'  and  supelters." 

Our  first  objection  to  white,  is,  that  it  is  too  glaring  and  con- 

*  We  say  genuine  white  lead,  for  it  is  notorious  that  four-fifths  of  the 
white  paint  sold  under  this  name  in  the  United  States,  is  only  an  imitation 
of  it,  composed  largely  of  whiting.  Though  the  first  cost  of  the  latter  is  lit- 
tle, yet  as  it  soon  rubs  off  and  speedily  repuires  renewal,  it  is  one  of  the  dear- 
est colors  in  the  end. 


254 


RURAL  ARCHITECTURE. 


spicuous.  We  scarcely  know  any  thing  more  uncomfortable  to  the 
eye,  than  to  approach  the  sunny  side  of  a  house  in  one  of  our  bril- 
liant midsummer  days,  when  it  revels  in  the  fashionable  purity  of  its 
color.  It  is  absolutely  painful.  Nature,  full  of  kindness  for  man,  has 
covered  most  of  the  surface  that  meets  his  eye  in  the  country,  with 
a  soft  green  hue — at  once  the  most  refreshing  and  most  grateful  to 
the  eye.  These  habitations  that  we  have  referred  to,  appear  to  be 
colored  on  the  very  opposite  principle,  and  one  needs,  in  broad  sun- 
shine, to  turn  his  eyes  away  to  relieve  them  by  a  glimpse  of  the 
soft  and  refreshing  shades  that  every  where  pervade  the  trees,  the 
grass,  and  the  surface  of  the  earth. 

Our  second  objection  to  white  is,  that  it  does  not  harmonize 
with  the  country,  and  thereby  mare  the  effect  of  rural  landscapes. 
Much  of  the  beauty  of  landscape  depends  on  what  painters  call 
breadth  of  tone — which  is  caused  by  broad  masses  of  colors  that 
harmonize  and  blend  agreeably  together.  Nothing  tends  to  destroy 
breadth  of  tone  so  much  as  any  object  of  considerable  size,  and  of  a 
brilliant  white.  It  stands  harshly  apart  from  all  the  soft  shades  of 
the  scene.  Hence  landscape  painters  always  studiously  avoid  the 
introduction  of  white  in  their  buildings,  and  give  them  instead, 
some  neutral  tint — a  tint  which  unites  or  contrasts  agreeably  with 
the  color  of  trees  and  grass,  and  which  seems  to  blend  into  other 
parts  of  natural  landscape,  instead  of  being  a  discordant  note  in  the 
general  harmony. 

There  is  always,  perhaps,  something  not  quite  agreeable  in  ob- 
jects of  a  dazzling  whiteness,  when  brought  into  contrast  with  other 
colors.  Mr.  Price,  in  his  essays  on  the  Beautiful  and  Picturesque, 
conceived  that  very  white  teeth  gave  a  silly  expression  to  the  coun- 
tenance— and  brings  forward,  in  illustration  of  it,  the  well-known 
soubriquet  which  Horace  Walpole  bestowed  on  one  of  his  acquaint- 
ances— "  the  gentleman  with  the  foolish  teeth." 

No  one  is  successful  in  rural  improvements,  who  does  not  study 
nature,  and  take  her  for  the  basis  of  his  practice.  Now,  in  natural 
landscape,  any  thing  like  strong  and  bright  colors  is  seldom  seen, 
except  in  very  minute  portions,  and  least  of  all  pure  white — chiefly 
appearing  in  small  objects  like  flowers.  The  practical  rule  which 
should  be  deduced  from  this,  is,  to  avoid  all  those  colors  which  na- 


ON  THE  COLOR  OF  COUNTRY  HOUSES. 


255 


ture  avoids.  In  buildings,  we  should  copy  those  that  she  offers 
chiefly  to  the  eye — such  as  those  of  the  soil,  rocks,  wood,  and  the 
bark  of  trees, — the  materials  of  which  houses  are  built.  These  ma- 
terials offer  us  the  best  and  most  natural  study  from  which  harmo- 
nious colors  for  the  houses  themselves  should  be  taken. 

Wordsworth,  in  a  little  volume  on  the  Scenery  of  the  Lakes,  re- 
marks that  the  objections  to  white  as  a  color,  in  large  spots  or 
masses,  in  landscapes,  are  insurmountable.  He  says  it  destroys  the 
gradations  of  distances,  haunts  the  eye,  and  disturbs  the  repose  of 
nature.  To  leave  some  little  consolation  to  the  lovers  of  white  lead, 
we  will  add  that  there  is  one  position  in  which  their  favorite  color 
may  not  only  be  tolerated,  but  often  has  a  happy  effect.  "We  mean 
in  the  case  of  a  country  house  or  cottage,  deeply  imbowered  in  trees. 
Surrounded  by  such  a  mass  of  foliage  as  Spenser  describes, 

"  In  whose  enclosed  shadow  there  was  set 
A  fair  pavilion  scarcely  to  be  seen," 

a  white  building  often  has  a  magical  effect.  But  a  landscape  painter 
would  quickly  answer,  if  he  were  asked  the  reason  of  this  exception 
to  the  rule,  "  It  is  because  the  building  does  not  appear  white."  In 
other  words,  in  the  shadow  of  the  foliage  by  which  it  is  half  con- 
cealed, it  loses  all  the  harshness  and  offensiveness  of  a  white  house 
in  an  open  site.  We  have,  indeed,  often  felt,  in  looking  at  examples 
of  the  latter,  set  upon  a  bald  hill,  that  the  building  itself  would,  if 
possible,  cry  out, 

"  Hide  me  from  day's  garish  eye." 

Having  entered  our  protest  against  the  general  use  of  white  in 
country  edifices,  we  are  bound  to  point  out  what  we  consider  suit- 
able shades  of  color. 

We  have  said  that  one  should  look  to  nature  for  hints  in  color. 
This  gives  us,  apparently,  a  wide  choice  of  shades,  but  as  we  ought 
properly  to  employ  modified  shades,  taken  from  the  colors  of  the 
materials  of  which  houses  are  constructed,  the  number  of  objects 
is  brought  within  a  moderate  compass.  Houses  are  not  built 
of  grass,  or  leaves,  and  there  is,  therefore,  not  much  propriety  in 


256 


RURAL  ARCHITECTURE. 


painting  a  dwelling  green.  Earth,  stone,  bricks,  and  wood,  are  the 
substances  that  enter  mostly  into  the  structure  of  our  houses,  and 
from  these  we  would  accordingly  take  suggestions  for  painting 
them. 

Sir  Joshua  Reynolds,  who  was  full  of  an  artistical  feeling  for  the 
union  of  a  house  with  its  surrounding  scenery,  once  said,  "  If  you 
would  fix  upon  the  best  color  for  your  house,  turn  up  a  stone,  or 
pluck  up  a  handful  of  grass  by  the  roots,  and  see  what  is  the  color 
of  the  soil  where  the  house  is  to  stand,  and  let  that  be  your  choice." 
This  rule  was  not  probably  intended  to  be  exactly  carried  into  gene- 
ral practice,  but  the  feeling  that  prompted  it  was  the  same  that  we 
are  endeavoring  to  illustrate — the  necessity  of  a  unity  of  color  in 
the  house  and  country  about  it. 

We  think,  in  the  beginning,  that  the  color  of  all  buildings  in  the 
country  should  be  of  those  soft  and  quiet  shades,  called  neutral  tints, 
such  as  fawn,  drab,  gray,  brown,  &c,  and  that  all  postive  colors, 
such  as  white,  yellow,  red,  blue,  black.  &c,  should  always  be  avoided ; 
neutral  tints  being  those  drawn  from  nature,  and  harmonizing  best 
with  her,  and  positive  colors  being  most  discordant  when  introduced 
into  rural  scenery. 

In  the  second  place,  we  would  adapt  the  shade  of  color,  as  far 
as  possible,  to  the  expression,  style,  or  character  of  the  house  itself. 
Thus,  a  large  mansion  may  very  properly  receive  a  somewhat  sober 
hue,  expressive  of  dignity ;  while  a  country  house,  of  moderate  size, 
demands  a  lighter  and  more  pleasant,  but  still  quiet  tone ;  and  a 
small  cottage  should,  we  think,  always  have  a  cheerful  and  lively 
tint.  Country  houses,  thickly  surrounded  by  trees,  should  always 
be  painted  of  a  lighter  shade  than  those  standing  exposed.  And  a 
new  house,  entirely  unrelieved  by  foliage,  as  it  is  rendered  conspicu- 
ous by  the  very  nakedness  of  its  position,  should  be  painted  several 
shades  darker  than  the  same  building  if  placed  in  a  well  wooded 
site.  In  proportion  as  a  hoitse  is  exposed  to  view,  let  its  hue  be 
darker,  and  where  it  is  much  concealed  by  foliage,  a  very  light  shade 
of  color  is  to  be  preferred. 

Wordsworth  remarks,  in  speaking  of  houses  in  the  Lake  coun- 
try, that  many  persons  who  have  heard  white  condemned,  have  erred 
by  adopting  a  ci  Id  slaty  color.    The  didness  and  dimness  of  hue  in 


ON  THE  COLOR  OF  COUNTRY  HOUSES. 


257 


some  dark  stones,  produces  an  effect  quite  at  variance  with  the 
cheerful  expression  which  small  houses  should  wear.  "  The  flaring 
yellow,"  he  adds,  "  runs  into  the  opposite  extreme,  and  is  still  more 
censurable.  Upon  the  whole,  the  safest  color,  for  general  use,  is 
something  between  a  cream  and  a  dust  color. 

This  color,  which  Wordsworth  recommends  for  general  use,  is  the 
hue  of  the  English  freestone,  called  Portland  stone — a  quiet  fawn 
color,  to  which  we  are  strongly  partial,  and  which  harmonizes  per- 
haps more  completely  with  all  situations  in  the  country  than  any 
other  that  can  be  named.  Next  to  this,  we  like  a  warm  gray,  that 
is,  a  drab  mixed  with  a  very  little  red  and  some  yellow.  Browns 
and  dark  grays  are  suitable  for  barns,  stables,  and  outbuildings, 
which  it  is  desirable  to  render  inconspicuous — but  for  dwellings,  un- 
less very  light  shades  of  these  latter  colors  are  used,  they  are  apt  to 
give  a  dull  and  heavy  effect  in  the  country  * 

A  very  slight  admixture  of  a  darker  color  is  sufficient  to  remove 
the  objections  to  white  paint,  by  destroying  the  glare  of  white,  the 
only  color  which  reflects  all  the  sun's  rays.  We  would  advise  the 
use  of  soft  shades,  not  much  removed  from  white,  for  small  cottages, 
which  should  not  be  painted  of  too  dark  a  shade,  which  would  give 
them  an  aspect  of  gloom  in  the  place  of  glare.  It  is  the  more  ne- 
cessary to  make  this  suggestion,  since  we  have^  lately  observed  that 
some  persons  newly  awakened  to  the  bad  effect  of  white,  have  rush- 
ed into  the  opposite  extreme,  and  colored  their  country  houses  of 
such  a  sombre  hue  that  they  give  a  melancholy  character  to  the 
whole  neighborhood  around  them. 

A  species  of  monotony  is  also  produced  by  using  the  same  neu- 
tral tint  for  every  part  of  the  exterior  of  a  country  house.  Now 
there  are  features,  such  as  window  facings,  blinds,  cornices,  etc., 
which  confer  the  same  kind  of  expression  on  a  house  that  the  eyes, 
eyebrows,  lips,  &c.  of  a  face,  do  upon  the  human  countenance.  To 

*  It  is  very  difficult  to  convey  any  proper  idea  of  shades  of  color  by 
words.  In  our  "  Cottage  Residences,"  we  have  attempted  to  do  so  by  a  plate 
showing  some  of  the  tints.  We  would  suggest  to  persons  wishing  to  select 
accurately,  shades  for  their  painter  to  copy,  to  go  into  a  stationer's  and  exa- 
mine a  stock  of  tinted  papers.  A  great  variety  of  shades  in  agreeable  neu- 
tral tints,  will  usually  be  found,  and  a  selection  once  made,  the  color  can  be 
imitated  without  risk  of  failure. 
17 


£58 


RUEAL  ARCHITECTURE. 


paint  the  whole  house  plain  drab,  gives  it  very  much  the  same  dull 
and  insipid  effect  that  colorless  features  (white  hair,  pale  eyebrows, 
lips,  &c,  &g.)  do  the  face.  A  certain  sprightliness  is  therefore  al- 
ways bestowed  on  a  dwelling  in  a  neutral  tint,  by  painting  the 
bolder  projecting  features  of  a  different  shade.  The  simplest  practi- 
cal rule  that  we  can  suggest  for  effecting  this,  in  the  most  satisfac- 
tory and  agreeable  manner,  is  the  following :  Choose  j>aint  of  some 
neutral  tint  that  is  quite  satisfactory,  and  let  the  facings  of  the  win- 
dows, cornices,  &c,  be  painted  several  shades  darker,  of  the  same 
color.  The  blinds  may  either  be  a  still  darker  shade  than  the  fa- 
cings, or  else  the  darkest  green.*  This  variety  of  shades  will  give  a 
building  a  cheerful  effect,  when,  if  but  one  of  the  shades  were  em- 
ployed, there  would  be  a  dulness  and  heaviness  in  the  appearance 
of  its  exterior.  Any  one  who  will  follow  the  principles  we  have 
suggested  cannot,  at  least,  fail  to  avoid  the  gross  blunders  in  taste 
which  most  common  house-painters  and  their  employers  have  so  long 
been  in  the  habit  of  committing  in  the  practice  of  painting  country 
houses. 

Uvedale  Price  justly  remarked,  that  many  people  have  a  sort  of 
callus  over  their  organs  of  light,  as  others  over  those  of  hearing  ; 
and  as  the  callous  hearers  feel  nothing  in  music  but  kettle-drums 
and  trombones,  so  the  callous  seers  can  only  be  moved  by  strong 
opposition  of  black  and  white,  or  by  fiery  reds.  There  are,  we  may 
acid,  many  house-painters  who  appear  to  be  equally  benumbed  to 
any  delicate  sensation  in  shades  of  color.  They  judge  of  the  beauty 
of  colors  upon  houses  as  they  do  in  the  raw  pigment,  and  we  verily 
believe  would  be  more  gratified  to  paint  every  thing  chrome  yellow, 
indigo  blue,  pure  white,  vermilion  red,  and  the  like,  than  with  the 
most  fitting  and  delicate  mingling  of  shades  to  be  found  under  the 

*  Thus,  if  the  color  of  the  house  be  that  of  Portland  stone  (a  fawn  shade), 
let  the  window  casings,  cornices,  etc.  be  painted  a  light  brown,  the  color  of 
our  common  red  freestone — and  make  the  necessaiy  shade  by  mixing  the  re- 
quisite quantity  of  brown  with  the  color  used  in  the  body  of  the  house. 
There  is  an  excellent  specimen  of  this  effect  in  the  exterior  of  the  Delavan 
House,  Albany.  Very  dark  green  is  quite  unobjectionable  a3  a  color  for  the 
Venetian  blir  ds,  so  much  used  in  our  country — as  it  is  quite  unobtrusive. 
Bright  greeE  is  offensive  to  the  eye,  and  vulgar  and  flashy  in  effect. 


ON  THE  COIOR  OF  COUNTRY  HOUSES. 


259 


wide  canopy  of  heaven.  Fortunately  fashion,  a  more  powerful 
teacher  of  the  multitude  than  the  press  or  the  schools,  is  now  setting 
in  the  right  direction.  A  few  men  of  taste  and  judgment,  in  city 
and  country,  have  set  the  example  by  casting  off  all  connection  with 
harsh  colors.  What  a  few  leaders  do  at  the  first,  from  a  nice  sense 
of  harmony  in  colors,  the  many  will  do  afterwards,  when  they  see 
the  superior  beauty  of  neutral  tints,  supported  and  enforced  by  the 
example  of  those  who  build  and  inhabit  the  most  attractive  and 
agreeable  houses,  and  we  trust,  at  no  very  distant  time,  one  may  have 
the  pleasure  of  travelling  over  our  whole  country,  without  meeting 
with  a  single  habitation  of  glaring  and  offensive  color,  but  every 
where  see  something  of  harmony  and  beauty. 


IX. 


A  SHORT  CHAPTER  ON  COUNTRY  CHURCHES. 

January,  1851. 

WHAT,  among  all  the  edifices  that  compose  a  country  town  or 
village,  is  that  which  the  inhabitants  should  most  love  and 
reverence, — should  most  respect  and  admire  among  themselves,  and 
should  feel  most  pleasure  in  showing  to  a  stranger  ? 

We  imagine  the  answer  ready  upon  the  lips  of  every  one  of 
our  readers  in  the  country,  and  rising  at  once  to  utterance,  is — the 
Village  Church. 

And  yet,  are  our  village  churches  winning  and  attractive  in 
then-  exterior  and  interior  ?  Is  one  drawn  to  admire  them  at  first 
sight,  by  the  beauty  of  their  proportions,  the  expression  of  holy 
purpose  which  they  embody,  the  feeling  of  harmony  with  God  and 
man,  which  they  suggest  ?  Does  one  get  to  love  the  very  stones 
of  which  they  are  composed,  because  they  so  completely  belong 
to  a  building,  which  looks  and  is  the  home  of  Christian  worship, 
and  stands  as  the  type  of  all  that  is  firmest  and  deepest  in  our 
religious  faith  and  affections  ? 

Alas  !  we  fear  there  are  very  few  country  churches  in  our  land 
that  exert  this  kind  of  spell, — a  spell  which  grows  out  of  making 
stone,  and  brick,  and  timber,  obey  the  will  of  the  bring  soul,  and 
express  a  religious  sentiment.  Most  persons,  most  committees,  se- 
lectmen, vestrymen,  and  congregations,  who  have  to  do  with  the 
building  of  churches,  appear  indeed  wholly  to  ignore  the  fact,  that 
the  form  and  feature  of  a  building  may  be  made  to  express  religious, 
civil,  domestic,  or  a  dozen  other  feelings,  as  distinctly  as  the  form 


A  SHORT  CHAPTER  ON  COUNTRY  CHURCHES.  261 

and  features  of  the  human  face ; — and  yet  this  is  a  fact  as  well 
known  by  all  true  architects,  as  that  joy  and  sorrow,  pleasure  and 
pain,  are  capable  of  irradiating  or  darkening  the  countenance.  Yes, 
and  we  do  not  say  too  much,  when  we  add,  that  right  expression 
in  a  building  for  religious  purposes,  has  as  much  to  do  with  awak- 
ening devotional  feelings,  and  begetting  an  attachment  in  the  heart, 
as  the  unmistakable  signs  of  virtue  and  benevolence  in  our  fellow- 
creatures,  have  in  awakening  kindred  feeling  in  our  own  breasts. 

We  do  not,  of  course,  mean  to  say,  that  a  beautiful  rural 
church  will  make  all  the  population  about  it  devotional,  any  more 
than  that  sunshine  will  banish  all  gloom  ;  but  it  is  one  of  the  in- 
fluences that  prepare  the  way  for  religious  feeling,  and  which  we 
are  as  unwise  to  neglect,  as  we  should  be  to  abjure  the  world  and 
bury  ourselves  like  the  ancient  troglodytes,  in  caves  and  caverns. 

To  speak  out  the  truth  boldly,  would  be  to  say  that  the  ugliest 
church  architecture  in  Christendom,  is  at  this  moment  to  be  found 
in  the  country  towns  and  villages  of  the  United  States.  Doubtless, 
the  hatred  which  originally  existed  in  the  minds  of  our  puritan  an- 
cestors, against  every  thing  that  belonged  to  the  Romish  Church,  in- 
cluding in  one  general  sweep  all  beauty  and  all  taste,  along  with 
all  the  superstitions  and  errors  of  what  had  become  a  corrupt 
system  of  religion,  is  a  key  to  the  bareness  and  baldness,  and  ab- 
sence of  all  that  is  lovely  to  the  eye  in  the  primitive  churches  of 
New  England — which  are  for  the  most  part  the  type-churches  of 
all  America. 

But,  little  by  little,  this  ultra-puritanical  spirit  is  wearing  off. 
Men  are  not  now  so  blinded  by  personal  feeling  against  great  spi- 
ritual wrongs,  as  to  identify  for  ever,  all  that  blessed  boon  of  har- 
mony, grace,  proportion,  symmetry  and  expression,  which  make 
what  we  call  Beauty,  with  the  vices,  either  real  or  supposed,  of  any 
particular  creed.  In  short,  as  a  people,  our  eyes  are  opening  to 
the  perception  of  influences  that  are  good,  healthful,  and  elevating 
to  the  soul,  in  all  ages,  and  all  countries — and  we  separate  the 
vices  of  men  from  the  laws  of  order  and  beauty,  by  which  the  uni- 
verse is  governed. 

The  first  step  which  we  have  taken  to  show  our  emancipation 
from  puritanism  in  architecture,  is  that  of  building  our  churches 


262 


RURAL  ARCHITECTURE. 


with  porticoes,  in  a  kind  of  shabby  imitation  of  Greek  temples. 
This  has  been  the  prevailing  taste,  if  it  is  worthy  of  that  name, 
of  the  Northern  States,  for  the  last  fifteen  or  twenty  years. 
The  form  of  these  churches  is  a  parallelogram.  A  long  row  of 
windows,  square  or  round-headed,  and  cut  in  two  by  a  gallery  on 
the  inside ;  a  clumsy  portico  of  Doric  or  Ionic  columns  in  front, 
and  a  cupola  upon  the  top,  (usually  stuck  in  the  only  place  where 
a  cupola  should  never  be — that  is,  directly  over  the  pediment  or 
portico) — such  are  the  chef  d'oeuvres  of  ecclesiastical  architecture, 
standing,  in  nine  cases  out  of  ten,  as  the  rural  churches  of  the 
country  at  large. 

Now,  architecturally,  we  ought  not  to  consider  these,  churches 
at  all.  And  by  churches,  we  mean  no  narrow  sectarian  phrase — 
but  a  place  where  Christians  worship  God.  Indeed,  many  of  the 
congregations  seem  to  have  felt  this,  and  contented  themselves  with 
calling  them  "  meeting-houses."  If  they  would  go  a  step  farther, 
and  turn  them  into  town  meeting-houses — or  at  least  would,  in  fu- 
ture, only  build  such  edifices  for  town  meetings,  or  other  civil  pur- 
poses, then  the  building  and  its  purpose  would  be  in  good  keeping, 
one  with  the  other. 

Not  to  appear  presumptive  and  partial  in  our  criticism,  let  us 
glance  for  a  moment  at  the  opposite  purposes  of  the  Grecian  or 
classical,  and  the  Gothic  or  pointed  styles  of  architecture — as  to 
what  they  really  mean  ; — for  our  readers  must  not  suppose  that  all 
architects  are  men  who  merely  put  together  certain  pretty  lines  and 
ornaments,  to  produce  an  agreeable  effect  and  please  the  popu- 
lar eye. 

In  these  two  styles,  which  have  so  taken  root  that  they  are  em- 
ployed at  the  present  moment,  all  over  Europe  and  America,  there 
is  something  more  than  a  mere  conventional  treatment  of  doors  and 
windows ;  the  application  of  columns  in  one  case,  and  the  introduc- 
tion of  pointed  arches  in  the  other.  In  other  words,  there  is  an  in- 
trinsic meaning  or  expression  involved  in  each,  which,  not  to  under- 
stand, or  vaguely  to  understand,  is  to  be  working  blindly,  or  striving 
after  something  in  the  dark. 

The  leading  idea  of  the  Greek  architecture,  then,  is  in  its  hori- 
zontal lines — the  unbroken  level  of  its  cornice,  which  is  the  "  level 


A  SHORT  CHAPTER  ON  COUNTRY  CHURCHES. 


263 


line  of  rationality."  In  this  line,  in  the  regular  division  of  spaces, 
both  of  columns  and  windows,  we  find  the  elements  of  order,  law, 
and  human  reason,  fully  and  completely  expressed.  Hence,  the  fit- 
ness of  classical  architecture  for  the  service  of  the  state,  for  the  town 
hall,  the  legislative  assembly,  the  lecture  room,  for  intellectual  or 
scientific  debate,  and  in  short,  for  all  civil  purposes  where  the  reason 
of  man  is  supreme.  So,  on  the  other  hand,  the  leading  idea  of 
Gothic  architecture  is  found  in  its  upward  lines — its  aspiring  ten- 
dencies. No  weight  of  long  cornices,  or  flat  ceilhags,  can  keep  it 
down ;  upward,  higher  and  higher,  it  soars,  lifting  every  thing,  even 
heavy,  ponderous  stones,  poising  them  in  the  air  in  vaulted  ceilings, 
or  piling  them  upwards  towards  Heaven,  in  spires,  and  steeples,  and 
towers,  that,  in  the  great  cathedrals,  almost  seem  to  pierce  the  sky. 
It  must  be  a  dull  sold  that  does  not  catch  and  feel  something  of  this 
upward  tendency  in  the  vaulted  aisles,  and  high,  open,  pointed  roofs 
of  the  interior  of  a  fine  Gothic  church,  as  well  as  its  subdued  and 
mellow  light,  and  its  suggestive  and  beautiful  forms :  forms,  too,  that 
are  rendered  more  touching  by  their  associations  with  Christian  wor- 
ship in  so  many  ages,  not,  like  the  Greek  edifices,  by  associations 
with  heathen  devotees. 

Granting  that  the  Gothic  cathedral  expresses,  in  its  lofty,  aspir- 
ing lines,  the  spirit  of  that  true  faith  and  devotion  which  leads  us  to 
look  upward,  is  it  possible,  in  the  narrow  compass  of  a  village 
church  which  costs  but  a  few  hundred,  or  at  most,  a  few  thousand 
dollars,  to  preserve  this  idea  ? 

We  answer,  yes.  A  drop  of  water  is  not  the  ocean,  but  it  is  still 
a  type  of  the  infinite ;  and  a  few  words  of  wisdom  may  not  penetrate 
the  understanding  so  deeply  as  a  great  volume  by  a  master  of  the 
human  heart,  but  they  may  work  miracles,  if  fitly  spoken.  For  it 
is  not  the  magnitude  of  things  that  is  the  measure  of  their  excellence 
and  power ;  and  there  is  space  enough  for  the  architect  to  awaken 
devotional  feelings,  and  lead  the  soul  upward,  so  far  as  material  form 
can  aid  in  doing  this,  though  in  a  less  degree,  in  the  little  chapel 
that  is  to  hold  a  few  hundred,  as  in  the  mighty  minster  where  thou- 
sands may  assemble. 

And  the  cost  too,  shall  not  be  greater ;  that  is,  if  a  substantial 
building  is  to  be  erected,  and  not  a  flimsy  frame  of  boards  and  plas- 


264 


RURAL  ARCHITECTURE. 


ter.  Indeed,  we  could  quote  numberless  instances  where  the  sums 
expended  in  classical  buildings,  of  false  proportions  but  costly  execu- 
tion,* which  can  never  raise  other  than  emotions  of  pride  in  the  hu- 
man heart,  would  have  built  beautiful  rural  churches,  which  every 
inhabitant  of  the  town  where  they  chanced  to  stand,  would  remem- 
ber with  feelings  of  respect  and  affection,  to  the  end  of  all  time. 

And  in  truth,  we  would  not  desire  to  make  the  country  church 
other  than  simple,  truthful,  and  harmonious.  We  would  avoid  all 
pretensions  to  elaborate  architectural  ornament ;  we  would  depend 
upon  the  right  proportions,  forms,  outlines,  and  the  true  expression 
Above  all,  we  would  have  the  country  church  rural  and  expressive, 
by  placing  it  in  a  spot  of  green  lawn,  surrounding  it  with  our  beau- 
tiful natural  shade  trees,  and  decorating  its  walls  (for  no  church 
built  in  any  but  the  newest  settlements,  where  means  are  utterly 
wanting,  should  be  built  of  so  perishable  a  material  as  wood) — with 
climbing  plants — the  ivy,  or  where  that  would  not  thrive,  the  Virginia 
creeper.  And  so  we  would  make  the  country  church,  in  its  very 
forms  and  outlines,  its  walls  and  the  vines  that  enwreath  them,  its 
shady  green  and  the  elms  that  overhang  it,  as  well  as  in  the  lessons 
of  goodness  and  piety  that  emanate  from  its  pulpit,  something  to 
become  a  part  of  the  affections,  and  touch  and  better  the  hearts  of 
the  whole  country  about  it. 

*  "We  have  seen  with  pain,  lately,  one  of  those  great  temple  churches 
erected  in  a  country  town  on  the  Hudson,  at  a  cost  of  $20,000.  It  looks 
outside  and  inside,  no  more  like  a  church,  than  does  the  Custom  House. 
And  yet  this  sum  would  have  built  the  most  perfect  of  devotional  edifices 
for  that  congregation. 


X. 


A  CHAPTER  ON  SCHOOL-HOUSES. 

March,  1848. 

IF  there  is  any  one  thing  on  which  the  usefulness,  the  true  great- 
ness, and  the  permanence,  of  a  free  government  depends  more 
than  another,  it  is  Education. 

Hence,  it  is  not  without  satisfaction  that  we  look  upon  our  free 
schools,  whose  rudimentary  education  is  afforded  to  so  many  at 
very  small  rates,  or  often  entirely  without  charge.  It  is  not  without 
pleasure  that  we  perceive  new  coUeges  springing  up,  as  large  cities 
multiply,  and  the  population  increases ;  it  is  most  gratifying  to  see, 
in  the  older  portions  of  the  country,  men  of  wealth  and  intelligence 
founding  new  professorships,  and  bequeathing  the  best  of  legacies  to 
their  successors — the  means  of  acquiring  knowledge  easily  and 
cheaply. 

There  is  much  to  keep  alive  this  train  of  thought,  in  the  very 
means  of  acquiring  education.  The  fertile  invention  of  our  age, 
and  its  teachers,  seems  to  be  especially  devoted  to  removing  all 
possible  obstacles,  and  throwing  all  possible  light  on  the  once  diffi- 
cult and  toilsome  paths  to  the  temple  of  science.  Class-books,  text- 
books, essays  and  treatises,  written  in  clear  terms,  and  illustrated 
with  a  more  captivating  style,  rob  learning  of  half  is  terrors  to  the 
beginner,  and  fairly  allure  those  who  do  not  come  willingly  into  the 
charmed  circle  of  educated  minds. 

All  this  is  truly  excellent.  This  broad  basis  of  education,  which 
is  laid  in  the  hearts  of  our  people,  which  the  States  publicly  main- 
tain, which  private  munificence  fosters,  to  which  even  men  in  for- 


266 


RURAL  ARCHITECTURE. 


eign  lands  delight  to  contribute,  must  be  cherished  by  every  Ameri- 
can as  the  key-stone  of  his  liberty ;  it  must  be  rendered  still  firmer 
and  broader,  to  meet  the  growing  strength  and  the  growing  dangers 
of  the  country ;  it  must  be  adapted  to  the  character  of  our  people, — ■ 
different  and  distinct  as  we  believe  that  character  to  be  from  that 
of  all  other  nations  ;  and,  above  all,  without  teaching  creeds  or  doc- 
trines, it  must  be  pervaded  by  profound  and  genuine  moral  feeling, 
more  central,  and  more  vital,  than  that  of  any  narrow  sectarianism. 

"Well,  will  any  of  our  readers  believe  that  this  train  of  thought 
has  grown  out  of  our  having  just  seen  a  most  shabby  and  forbid- 
ding-looking school-house  !  Truly,  yes !  and,  as  in  an  old  picture 
of  Rembrandt's,  the  stronger  the  lights,  the  darker  also  the  shadows, 
we  are  obliged  to  confess  that,  with  so  much  to  be  proud  of  in  our 
system  of  common  schools,  there  is  nothing  so  beggarly  and  dis- 
graceful as  the  externals  of  our  country  school-houses  themselves. 

A  traveller  through  the  Union,  is  at  once  struck  with  the  gen- 
eral appearance  of  comfort  in  the  houses  of  our  rural  population. 
But,  by  the  way-side,  here  and  there,  he  observes  a  small,  one  story 
edifice,  built  of  wood  or  stone  in  the  most  meagre  mode, — dingy  in 
aspect,  and  dilapidated  in  condition.  It  is  placed  in  the  barest 
and  most  forbidding  site  in  the  whole  country  round.  If  you  fail 
to  recognize  it  by  these  marks,  you  can  easily  make  it  out  by  the 
broken  fences,  and  tumble-down  stone  walls  that  surround  it ;  by 
the  absence  of  all  trees,  and  by  the  general  expression  of  melan- 
choly, as  if  every  lover  of  good  order  and  beauty  in  the  neighbor- 
hood had  abandoned  it  to  the  genius  of  desolation. 

This  condition  of  things  is  almost  universal.  It  must,  therefore, 
be  founded  in  some  deep-rooted  prejudices,  or  some  mistaken  idea 
of  the  importance  of  the  subject. 

That  the  wretched  condition  of  the  country  school-houses  is  ow- 
ing to  a  general  license  of  what  the  phrenologists  would  call  the 
organs  of  destructiveness  in  boys,  we  are  well  aware.  But  it  is  in 
giving  this  license  that  the  great  error  of  teachers  and  superintend- 
ents of  schools  lies.  There  is  also,  God  be  thanked,  a  principle  of 
order  and  a  love  of  beauty  implanted  in  every  human  mind ;  and 
the  degree  to  which  it  may  be  cidtivated  in  children  is  quite  un- 
known to  those  who  start  leaving  such  a  principle  wholly  out  of 


A  CHAPTER  ON  SCHOOL-HOUSES. 


267 


sight.  To  be  convinced  of  this,  it  is  only  necessary  to  inquire,  and 
it  will  be  found  that  in  the  homes  of  many  of  the  pupils  of  the  for- 
lorn-looking school-house,  the  utmost  propriety,  order,  and  method 
reigns.  Nay,  even  within  the  school-house  itself,  "heaven's  first 
law"  is  obeyed,  perhaps  to  the  very  letter.  But  to  look  at  the  ex- 
terior, it  would  appear  that  the  "  abbot  of  unreason,"  and  not  the 
"school-master,"  was  "abroad."  The  truth  seems  to  be  simply  this. 
The  school-master  does  not  himself  appreciate  the  beautiful  in  rura*l 
objects ;  and,  content  with  doing  what  he  conceives  his  duty  to  the 
heads  of  his  pupils,  while  they  are  within  the  school-house,  he 
abandons  its  externals  to  the  juvenile  "  reign  of  terror." 

Nothing  is  so  convincing  on  these  subjects  as  example.  We 
saw,  last  summer,  in  Dutchess  County,  New-York,  a  free  school, 
erected  to  fulfil  more  perfectly  the  mission  of  an  ordinary  district 
school-house,  which  had  been  built  by  a  gentleman,  whose  taste 
and  benevolence  seem,  like  sunshine,  to  warm  and  irradiate  his 
whole  neighborhood.  It  was  a  building  simple  enough,  after  all. 
A  projecting  roof,  with  slightly  ornamented  brackets,  a  pretty 
porch,  neat  chimney  tops  ;  its  color  a  soft  neutral  tint ;  these  were 
its  leading  features.  But  a  single  glance  at  it  told,  in  a  moment, 
that  the  evil  spirit  had  been  cast  out,  and  the  good  spirit  had  taken 
its  place.  The  utmost  neatness  and  cleanliness  appeared  in  every 
part.  Beautiful  vines  and  creepers  climbed  upon  the  walls,  and 
hung  in  festoons  over  the  windows.  Groups  of  trees,  and  flowering 
shrubs,  were  thriving  within  its  inclosure.  A  bit  of  neat  lawn  sur- 
rounded the  building,  and  was  evidently  an  object  of  care  and  re- 
spect with  the  pupils  themselves.  Altogether,  it  was  a  picture  of  a 
common  district  school  which,  compared  with  that  we  before  de- 
scribed, and  which  one  every  day  sees,  was  a  foretaste  of  the  mille- 
nium.  If  any  stubborn  pedagogue  doubts  it,  let  him  come  to  us, 
and  we  will  direct  him  on  a  pilgrimage  to  this  Mecca,  which  is  only 
eight  miles  from  us. 

It  appears  to  us  that  a  great  error  has  taken  deep  root  in  the 
minds  of  most  parents  and  teachers,  regarding  the  influence  of  or- 
der and  beauty  on  the  youthful  mind.  Ah  !  it  is  precisely  at  that 
age — in  youth — when  the  heart  is  most  sensitive,  when  the  feelings 
are  more  keenly  alive  than  at  any  other ;  it  is  precisely  at  that  age 


268 


RURAL  ARCHITECTURE. 


that  the  soul  opens  itself  most  to  visions  of  beauty — that  the  least 
measure  of  harmony — the  most  simple  notions  of  the  graceful  and 
symmetrical — fill  it  with  joy.  The  few  yards  square,  in  which  the 
child  is  permitted  to  realize  his  own  vague  ideal  of  a  garden — does 
it  not  fill  his  heart  more  completely  than  the  great  Versailles  of 
monarchs  that  of  the  mature  man  ?  Do  we  not  forever  remember 
with  what  transport  of  delight  we  have  first  seen  the  grand  old 
trees,  the  beautiful  garden,  the  favorite  landscape,  from  the  hill -top 
of  our  childhood  ?  What  after  pictures,  however  grand — however 
magnificent — however  perfect  to  the  more  educated  eye,  are  ever 
able  to  efface  these  first  daguerreotypes,  printed  on  the  fresh  pages 
of  the  youthful  soul  ? 

It  is  rather  because  teachers  misunderstand  the  nature  of  man, 
and  more  especially  of  boyhood,  that  we  see  so  much  to  deplore  in 
the  exteriors  of  the  houses  in  which  they  are  taught.  They  forget, 
that  in  human  natures  there  are  not  only  intellects  to  acquire  know- 
ledge, but  also  hearts  to  feel  and  senses  to  enjoy  life.  They  forget 
that  all  culture  is  one-sided  and  short-sighted,  which  does  not  aim 
to  develop  human  nature  completely,  fully. 

We  have  an  ideal  picture,  that  refreshes  our  imagination,  of 
common  school-houses,  scattered  all  over  our  wide  country ;  not 
wild  bedlams,  which  seem  to  the  traveller  plague-spots  on  the  fair 
country  landscape  ;  but  little  nests  of  verdure  and  beauty ;  einbryb 
arcadias,  that  beget  tastes  for  lovely  gardens,  neat  houses,  and  well 
cultivated  lands ;  spots  of  recreation,  that  are  play-grounds  for  the 
memory,  for  many  long  years  after  all  else  of  childhood  is  crowded 
out  and  effaced  for  ever. 

Let  some  of  our  readers  who  have  an  influence  in  this  matter, 
try  to  work  a  little  reform  in  their  own  districts.  Suppose,  in  the  first 
place,  the  school-house  itself  is  rendered  agreeable  to  the  eye.  Sup- 
pose a  miniature  park  of  elms  and  maples  is  planted  about  it.  Sup- 
pose a  strip  of  ground  is  set  apart  for  little  gardens,  to  be  given  as 
premiums  to  the  successful  pupils ;  and  which  they  are  only  to  hold 
so  long  as  both  they  and  their  gardens  are  kept  up  to  the  topmost 
standard.  Suppose  the  trees  are  considered  to  be  the  property  and 
under  the  protection  of  certain  chiefs  of  the  classes.    And,  suppose 


A  CHAPTER  ON  SCHOOL-HOUSES. 


269 


that,  besides  all  this  little  arrangement  for  the  growth  of  a  love  of 
order  and  beauty  in  the  youthful  heart  and  mind,  there  is  an  ample 
play-ground  provided  for  the  expenditure  of  youthful  activity ;  where 
wild  sports  and  gymnastics  may  be  indulged  to  the  utmost  delight 
of  their  senses,  and  the  utmost  benefit  of  their  constitutions.  Is  this 
Utopian  ?  Does  any  wise  reader  think  it  is  not  worthier  of  the  con- 
sideration of  the  State,  than  fifty  of  the  projects  which  will  this  year 
come  before  it  ? 

For  ourselves,  we  have  perfect  faith  in  the  future.  "We  believe 
in  the  millennium  of  schoolboys.  And  we  believe  that  our  country- 
men, as  soon  as  they  comprehend  fully  the  value  and  importance 
of  external  objects  on  the  mind — on  the  heart — on  the  manners — 
on  the  life  of  all  human  beings — will  not  be  slow  to  concentrate  all 
beautiful,  good,  and  ennobling  influences  around  that  primary  nursery 
of  the  intellect  and  sensations — the  district  school. 

There  is  a  strong  illustration  of  our  general  acknowledgment  of 
this  influence  of  the  beautiful,  to  be  found,  at  the  present  moment, 
in  this  country  more  than  in  any  other.  We  allude  to  our  Rural 
Cemeteries,  and  our  Insane  Asylums.  It  is  somewhat  curious,  but 
not  less  true,  that  no  country-seats,  no  parks  or  pleasure-grounds,  in 
America,  are  laid  out  with  more  care,  adorned  with  more  taste,  filled 
with  more  lovely  flowers,  shrubs  and  trees,  than  some  of  our  princi- 
pal cemeteries  and  asylums.  Is  it  not  surprising  that  only  when 
touched  with  sorrow,  we,  as  a  people,  most  seek  the  gentle  and  re- 
fining influence  of  nature  ?  Ah  !  many  a  man,  whose  life  was  hard 
and  stony,  reposes,  after  death,  in  those  cemeteries,  beneath  a  turf 
covered  with  violets  and  roses  ;  but  for  him,  it  is  too  late !  Many  a 
fine  intellect,  overtasked  and  wrecked  in  the  too  ardent  pursuit  of 
power  or  wealth,  is  fondly  courted  back  to  reason,  and  more  quiet 
joys,  by  the  dusky,  cool  walks  of  the  asylum,  where  peace  and  rural 
beauty  do  not  refuse  to  dwell.  But,  alas,  too  often  their  mission  is 
fruitless ! 

How  much  better,  to  distil  these  "gentle  dews  of  heaven"  into 
the  young  heart,  to  implant,  even  in  the  schoolboy  days,  a  love  of 
trees  ;  of  flowers  ;  of  gardens  ;  of  the  country  ;  of  home ; — of  all 
those  pure  and  simple  pleasures,  which  are,  in  the  after  life — even 


210 


RURAL  ARCHITECTURE. 


if  they  exist  only  in  the  memory — a  blessed  panacea,  amid  the  dry- 
ness and  dustiness  of  so  many  of  the  paths  of  life — politics — com- 
merce— the  professions — and  all  other  busy,  engrossing  occupations, 
whose  cares  become,  else,  almost  a  fever  in  the  veins  of  our  ardent, 
enterprising  people. 


XL 


HOW  TO  BUILD  ICE-HOUSES. 

December,  1846. 

THE  ice-house  and  the  hot-house,  types  of  Lapland  and  tlie 
Tropics,  are  two  contrivances  which  civilization  has  invented  for 
the  comfort  or  luxury  of  man.  A  native  of  the  Sandwich  Islands, 
who  lives,  as  he  conceives,  in  the  most  delicious  climate  in  the  world, 
and  sleeps  away  the  best  part  of  his  life  in  that  happy  state  which 
the  pleasure-loving  Italians  call  "dolce  far  niente"  (sweet  do  no- 
thing)— smiles  and  shudders  when  he  hears  of  a  region  where  his 
familiar  trees  must  be  kept  in  glass  houses,  and  the  water  turns,  now 
and  then,  into  solid,  cold  crystal ! 

Yet,  if  happiness,  as  some  philosophers  have  affirmed,  consists 
in  a  variety  of  sensations,  we  denizens  of  temperate  latitudes  have 
greatly  the  advantage  of  him.  What  surprise  and  pleasure  awaits 
the  Sandwich  Islander,  for  example,  like  that  we  experience  on  en- 
tering a  spacious  hot-house,  redolent  of  blossoms  and  of  perfume,  in 
mid-winter,  or  on  refreshing  our  exhausted  frames  with  one  of  "  Thom- 
son and  Weller's "  vanilla  creams,  or  that  agreeable  compound  of 
the  vintage  of  Xeres,  pounded  ice,  etc.,  that  bears  the  humble  name 
of  "  sherry-cobbler  f  but  which,  having  been  introduced  lately  from 
this  country  into  London,  along  with  our  "  American  ice,"  has  sent 
into  positive  ecstasies  all  those  of  the  great  metropolis,  who  depend 
upon  their  throats  for  sensations. 

Our  business  at  the  present  moment,  is  with  the  ice-house, — as  a 
necessary  and  most  useful  appendage  to  a  country  residence.  Abroad, 
both  the  ice-house  and  the  hot-house  are  portions  of  the  wealthy 


272 


RURAL  ARCHITECTURE. 


man's  establishment  solely.  But  in  this  country,  the  ice-house  forms 
part  of  the  comforts  of  every  substantial  farmer.  It  is  not  for  the  sake 
of  ice-creams  and  cooling  liquors,  that  it  has  its  great  value  in  his  eyes, 
but  as  a  means  of  preserving  and  keeping  in  the  finest  condition, 
during  the  summer,  his  meat,  his  butter,  his  delicate  fruit,  and,  in 
short,  his  whole  perishable  stock  of  provisions.  Half  a  dozen  cor- 
respondents, lately,  have  asked  us  for  some  advice  on  the  construc- 
tion of  an  ice-house,  and  we  now  cheerfully  offer  all  the  informa- 
tion in  our  possession. 

To  build  an  ice-house  in  sandy  or  gravelly  soils,  is  one  of  the 
easiest  things  in  the  world.  The  drainage  there  is  perfect,  the  dry  and 
porous  soil  is  of  itself  a  sufficiently  good  non-conductor.  All  that  it 
is  necessary  to  do,  is  to 
dig  a  pit,  twelve  feet 
square,  and  as  many 
deep,  line  it  with  logs 
or  joists  faced  with 
boards,  cover  it  with  a 
simple  roof  on  a  level 
with  the  ground,  and 
fill  it  with  ice.  Such 
ice-houses,  built  with 
trifling  cost,  and  en- 
tirely answering  the 
purpose  of  affording 
ample  supply  for  a 

,         „     .,  Fig.  3.  The  common  Ice-house  below  ground, 

large  family,  are  com- 
mon in  various  parts  of  the  country. 

But  it  often  happens  that  one's  residence  is  upon  a  strong  loamy 
or  clayey  soil,  based  upon  clay  or  slate,  or,  at  least,  rocky  in  its  sub- 
stratum. Such  a  soil  is  retentive  of  moisture,  and  even  though  it 
be  well  drained,  the  common  ice-house,  just  described,  will  not  pre- 
serve ice  half  through  the  summer  in  a  locality  of  that  kind.  The 
clayey  or  rocky  soil  is  always  damp — it  is  always  an  excellent  con- 
ductor, and  the  ice  melts  in  it  in  spite  of  all  the  usual  precautions. 

Something  more  than  the  common  ice-house  is  therefore  needed 


HOW  TO  BUILD  ICE-HOUSES. 


273 


in  all  such  soils.  "  How  shall  it  be  built  ? "  is  the  question  which  has 
been  frequently  put  to  us  lately. 

To  enable  us  to  answer  this  question  in  the  most  satisfactory 
manner,  we  addressed  ourselves  to  Mr.  N.  J.  Wyeth  of  Cambridge, 
Mass.,  whose  practical  information  on  this  subject  is  probably  fuller 
and  more  complete  than  that  of  any  other  person  in  the  country, 
he,  for  many  years,  having  had  the  construction  and  management 
of  the  enormous  commercial  ice-houses,  near  Boston — the  largest 
and  most  perfect  known.* 

We  desired  Mr.  Wyeth's  hints  for  building  an  ice-house  for 
family  use,  both  above  ground  and  below  ground. 

In  the  beginning  we  should  remark  that  the  great  ice-houses  of 
our  ice  companies  are  usually  built  above  ground  ;  and  Mr.  Wyeth 

in  his  letter  to  us  re- 
marks, "we  now  never 
build  or  use  an  ice- 
house under  ground  ; 
it  never  preserves  ice 
as  well  as  those  built 
above  ground,  and 
costs  much  more.  I, 
however,  send  you  di- 
rections for  the  con- 
struction of  both 
kinds,  with  slight 
sketches  in  explana- 
tion." The  following 
are  Mr.  Wyeth's  di- 
rections for  building: 
"  1st.  An  ice-house 
above  ground.  An  ice- 
house above  ground 

Fig  4.   Section  of  the  Ice-houso  above  ground.         should  be  built  Upon 

*  Few  of  our  readers  are  aware  of  the  magnitude  which  the  business  of 
supplying  foreign  countries  with  ice  has  attained  in  New  England.  Millions 
of  dollars  worth  have  been  shipped  from  the  port  of  Boston  alone,  within 
18 


274 


RURAL  ARCHITECTURE. 


the  plan  of  having  a  double  partition,  with  the  hollow  space  be- 
tween filled  with  some  non-conducting  substance. 

"  In  the  first  place,  the  frame  of  the  sides  should  be  formed  of 
two  ranges  of  upright  joists,  6  by  4  inches ;  the  lower  ends  of  the 
joists  should  be  put  into  the  ground  without  any  sill,  which  is  apt 
to  let  air  pass  through.    These  two  ranges  of  joists  should  be  about 

two  feet  and  one-half 
apart  at  the  bottom, 
and  two  feet  deep  at 
the  top.  At  the  top 
these  joists  should  be 
mortised  into  the 
cross-beams,  which  are 
to  support  the  upper 
floor.  The  joists  in  the  two  ranges  should  be  placed  each  opposite 
another.  They  should  then  be  lined  or  faced  on  one  side,  with 
rough  boarding,  which  need  not  be  very  tight.  This  boarding 
shoidd  be  nailed  to  those  edges  of  the  joists  nearest  each  other,  so 
that  one  range  of  joists  shall  be  outside  the  building,  and  the  other 
inside  the  ice-room  or  vault.    (Fig.  5.) 

"  The  space  between  these  boardings  or  partitions  should  be  filled 
with  wet  tan,  or  sawdust,  whichever  is  cheapest  or  most  easily  ob- 
tained. The  reason  for  using  wet  material  for  filling  this  space  is 
that  during  winter  it  freezes,  and  until  it  is  again  thawed,  little  or 
no  ice  will  melt  at  the  sides  of  the  vault. 

"  The  bottom  of  the  ice  vault  should  be  filled  about  a  foot  deep  with 
small  blocks  of  wood ;  these  are  levelled  and  covered  with  wood  shav- 
ings, over  which  a  strong  plank  floor  should  be  laid  to  receive  the  ice. 

the  last  eight  years ;  and  the  East  and  West  Indies,  China,  England,  and  the 
South,  are  constantly  supplied  with  ice  from  that  neighborhood.  Wenham 
Lake  is  now  as  well  known  in  London  for  its  ice,  as  Westphalia  for  its  hams. 
This  enterprise  owes  its  success  mainly  to  the  energy  of  Frederick  Tudor,  Esq., 
of  Boston.  The  ice-houses  of  this  gentlemaD,  built,  we  believe,  chiefly  by 
Mr.  Wyeth,  are  on  a  more  gigantic  scale  than  any  others  in  the  world.  An 
extra  whole  year's  supply  is  laid  up  in  advance,  to  guard  against  the  acci- 
dent of  a  mild  winter,  and  a  railroad  several  miles  in  length,  built  expressly 
for  the  purpose,  conveys  the  ice  to  the  ships  lying  in  the  harbor. 


^tf     I    I  s 

Fig.  5.  Manner  of  nailing  the  boards  to  the  joists. 


HOW  TO  BUILD  ICE-HOUSES. 


215 


"  Upon  the  beams  above  the  vault,  a  pretty  tight  floor  should 
also  be  laid,  and  this  floor  should  be  covered  several  inches  deep 
with  dry  tan  or  sawdust.  The  roof  of  the  ice-house  should  have 
considerable  pitch,  and  the  space  between  the  upper  floor  and  the 
roof  should  be  ventilated  by  a  lattice  window  at  each  gable  end  or 
something  equivalent,  to  pass  out  the  warm  air  which  will  accumu- 
late beneath  the  roof.  A  door  must  be  provided  in  the  side  of  the 
vault  to  fill  and  discharge  it ;  but  it  should  always  be  closed  up  higher 
tban  the  ice,  and  when  not  in  use  should  be  kept  closed  altogether. 

"  2c?.  An  Ice-house  below  ground.  This  is  only  thoroughly  made 
by  building  up  the  sides  of  the  pit  with  a  good  brick  or  stone  wall,  lain 
in  mortar.  Inside  of  this  wall  set  joists,  and  build  a  light  wooden  par- 
tition against  which  to  place  the  ice.  A  good  floor  should  be  laid 
over  the  vault  as  just  described,  and  this  should  also  be  covered  with 
dry  tan  or  sawdust.  In  this  floor  the  door  must  be  cut  to  give  ac- 
cess to  the  ice. 

"  As  regards  the  bottom  of  the  vault,  the  floor,  the  lattice  win- 
dows in  the  gables  for  ventilation,  etc.,  the  same  remarks  will  apply 
that  have  just  been  given  for  the  ice-house  above  ground,  with  the 
addition  that  in  one  of  the  gables,  in  this  case,  must  be  the  door  for 
filling  the  house  with  ice. 

"  If  the  ground  where  ice-houses  of  either  kind  are  built,  is  not 
porous  enough  to  let  the  melted  ice  drain  away,  then  there  should 
be  a  waste  pipe  to  carry  it  off,  which  should  be  slightly  bent,  so  as 
always  to  retain  enough  water  in  it  to  prevent  the  passage  of  air  up- 
wards into  the  ice-house." 

These  plain  and  concise  hints  by  Mr.  Wyeth,  will  enable  our 
readers,  who  have  failed  in  building  ice-houses  in  the  common  way, 
to  remedy  their  defects,  or  to  construct  new  ones  on  the  improved 
plan  just  given.  The  main  points,  it  will  be  seen,  are,  to  place  a 
sufficient  non-conducting  medium  of  tan  or  sawdust,  if  above  ground, 
or  of  wall  and  wood  partition,  if  below  ground,  to  prevent  the  action 
of  the  air,  or  the  damp  soil,  on  the  body  of  ice  inclosed  in  the  vault. 

Mr.  Wyeth  has  not  told  us  how  large  the  dimensions  of  an  ice- 
house built  in  either  of  these  modes  should  be  to  provide  for  the 
use  of  an  ordinary  family  through  a  season  ;  but  we  will  add  as  to 
this  point,  that  a  cube  of  twelve  or  fourteen  feet — that  is,  a  house 


276 


RURAL  ARCHITECTURE. 


the  vault  of  which  will  measure  about  twelve  to  fourteen  feet  "  in 
the  clear,"  every  way,  will  be  quite  large  enough,  if  properly  con- 
structed. An  ice-house,  the  vault  of  which  is  a  cube  of  twelve  feet, 
will  hold  about  fifty  tons  of  ice.  One  of  this  size,  near  Boston,  filled 
last  January,  is  still  half  full  of  ice,  after  supplying  the  wants  of  a 
family  all  the  season. 

In  the  ice-house  above 
ground,  the  opening  being 
in  the  side,  it  will  be  best 
to  have  a  double  door,  one 
in  each  partition,  opposite 
each  other.  The  outer  one 
may  be  entire,  but  the  in- 
ner one  should  be  in  two 
or  three  parts.  The  upper 
part  may  be  opened  first, 
so  that  only  so  much  of 
the  ice  may  be  exposed  at 
once,  as  is  necessary  to 
reach  the  topmost  layers. 

An  ice-house  below 
ground  is  so  inconspicuous 
on  object,  that  it  is  easily 
kept  out  of  sight,  and  little 
or  n-o  regard  may  be  paid  to  its  exterior  appearance.  On  the  con- 
trary, an  ice-house  above  ground  is  a  building  of  sufficient  size  to 
attract  the  eye,  and  in  many  country  residences,  therefore,  it  will  be 
desirable  to  give  its  exterior  a  neat  or  tasteful  air. 

It  will  frequently  be  found,  however,  that  an  ice-house  above 
ground  may  be  very  conveniently  constructed  under  the  same  roof 
as  the  wood-house,  tool-house,  or  some  other  necessary  out-building, 
following  all  the  necessary  details  just  laid  down,  and  continuing 
one  roof  and  the  same  kind  of  exterior  over  the  whole  building. 

In  places  of  a  more  ornamental  character,  where  it  is  desirable 
to  place  the  elevated  ice-house  at  no  great  distance  from  the  dwell- 
ing, it  should,  of  course,  take  something  of  an  ornamental  or  pictu- 
character. 


Fig.  6.  Double  Door  of  the  Ice-house. 


HOW  TO  BUILD  ICE-HOUSES. 


211 


In  figures  1  and  2,  are  shown  two  designs  for  ice-houses  above 
ground,  in  picturesque  styles.  Figure  1  is  built  in  a  circular  form, 
and  the  roof  neatly  thatched.  The  outside  of  this  ice-house  is 
roughly  weather-boarded,  and  then  ornamented  with  rustic  work, 
or  covered  with  strips  of  bark  neatly  nailed  on  in  panels  or  devices. 
Two  small  gables  with  blinds  ventilate  the  space  under  the  roof. 

Fig.  2  is  a  square  ice-house,  with  a  roof  projecting  three  or  four 
feet,  and  covered  with  shingles,  the  lower  ends  of  which  are  cut  so 
as  to  form  diamond  patterns  when  laid  on  the  roof.  The  rustic 
brackets  which  support  this  roof,  and  the  rustic  columns  of  the  other 
design,  will  be  rendered  more  durable  by  stripping  the  bark  off,  and 
thoroughly  painting  them  some  neutral  or  wood  tint.* 

*  The  projecting  roof  will  assist  in  keeping  the  building  cool.  In  filling 
the  house,  back  up  the  wagon  loaded  with  ice,  and  slide  the  squares  of  ice 
to  their  places  on  a  plank  serving  as  an  inclined  plane. 


xn. 

THE  FAVORITE  POISON  OF  AMERICA. 

November,  1850. 

ONE  of  the  most  complete  and  salutary  reforms  ever,  perhaps, 
made  in  any  country,  is  the  temperance  reform  of  the  last  fif- 
teen years  in  the  United  States.  Every  body,  familiar  with  our  man- 
ners and  customs  fifteen  or  twenty  years  ago,  very  well  knows  that 
though  our  people  were  never  positively  intemperate,  yet  ardent 
spirits  were,  at  that  time,  in  almost  as  constant  daily  use,  both  in 
public  and  private  life,  as  tea  and  coffee  are  now ;  while  at  the  pres- 
ent moment,  they  are  seldom  or  never  offered  as  a  means  of  civility 
or  refreshment — at  least  in  the  older  States.  The  result  of  this 
higher  civilization  or  temperance,  as  one  may  please  to  call  it,  is  that 
a  large  amount  of  vice  and  crime  have  disappeared  from  amidst  the 
laboring  classes,  while  the  physical  as  well  as  moral  condition  of 
those  who  labor  too  little  to  be  able  to  bear  intoxicating  drinks,  is 
very  much  improved. 

We  have  taken  this  consolatory  glance  at  this  great  and  saluta- 
ry reform  of  the  habits  of  a  whole  country,  because  we  need  some- 
thing to  fortify  our  faith  in  the  possibility  of  new  reforms ;  for  our 
countrymen  have,  within  the  last  ten  years,  discovered  a  new  poison, 
which  is  used  wholesale,  both  in  public  and  private,  all  over  the 
country,  till  the  national  health  and  constitution  are  absolutely  im- 
paired by  it. 

"  A  national  poison  ?  Do  you  mean  slavery,  socialism,  abolition, 
mormonism  ? "  Nothing  of  the  sort.  "  Then,  perhaps,  tobacco, 
patent  medicines,  or  coffee  ? "    Worse  than  these.    It  is  a  foe  more 


THE  FAVORITE  POISON  OF  AMERICA. 


2l9 


insidious  than  these  ;  for,  at  least,  one  very  well  knows  what  one  is 
ahout  when  he  takes  copious  draughts  of  such  things.  Whatever 
his  own  convictions  may  he,  he  knows  that  some  of  his  fellow  crea- 
tures consider  them  deleterious. 

But  the  national  poison  is  not  thought  dangerous.  Far  from  it. 
On  the  contrary,  it  is  made  almost  synonymous  with  domestic  com- 
fort. Old  and  young,  rich  and  poor,  drink  it  in  with  avidity,  and 
without  shame.  The  most  tender  and  delicate  women  and  children 
are  fondest  of  it,  and  become  so  accustomed  to  it,  that  they  gradu- 
ally abandon  the  delights  of  bright  sunshine,  and  the  pure  air  of 
heaven,  to  take  it  in  large  draughts.  "What  matter  if  their  cheeks 
become  as  pale  as  the  ghosts  of  Ossian ;  if  their  spirits  forsake  them, 
and  they  become  listless  and  languid  !  Are  they  not  well  housed 
and  comfortable?  Are  not  their  lives  virtuous,  and  their  affairs 
prosperous  ?  Alas,  yes !  But  they  are  not  the  less  guilty  of  poison- 
ing themselves  daily,  though  perhaps  unconscious  of  it  all  the 
time. 

The  national  poison  that  we  allude  to,  is  nothing  less  than  the 
vitiated  air  of  close  stoves,  and  the  unventilated  apartments  which 
accompany  them  ! 

"  Stoves " — exclaim  a  thousand  readers  in  the  same  breath — 
"  stoves  poisonous  ?  Nonsense !  they  are  perfectly  healthy,  as  well 
as  the  most  economical,  convenient,  labor-saving,  useful,  and  indis- 
pensable things  in  the  world.  Besides,  are  they  not  real  Yankee 
inventions  ?  In  what  country  but  this  is  there  such  an  endless  va- 
riety of  stoves — cooking  stoves,  hall  stoves,  parlor  stoves,  air-tight 
stoves,  cylinders,  salamanders,  etc.  ?  Why,  it  is  absolutely  the  na- 
tional invention — this  stove — the  most  useful  result  of  universal 
Yankee  ingenuitj''." 

We  grant  it  all,  good  friends  and  readers ;  but  must  also  have 
our  opinion — our  calmly  considered  and  carefully  matured  opinion — 
which  is  nothing  more  nor  less  than  this,  that  stoves — as  now  used 
— are  the  national  curse ;  the  secret  poisoners  of  that  blessed  air, 
bestowed  by  kind  Providence  as  an  elixir  of  life, — giving  us  new 
vigor  and  fresh  energy  at  every  inspiration ;  and  we,  ungrateful 
beings,  as  if  the  pure  breath  of  heaven  were  not  fit  for  us,  we  reject 
it,  and  breathe  instead — what  ? — the  air  which  passes  over  a  surface 


280  RURAL  ARCHITECTURE. 

of  hot  iron,  and  becomes  loaded  with  all  the  vapor  of  arsenic  and 
sulphur,  which  that  metal,  highly  heated,  constantly  gives  off  ! 

If  in  the  heart  of  large  cities — where  there  is  a  large  population 
crowded  together,  with  scanty  means  of  subsistence — one  saw  a  few 
persons  driven  by  necessity  into  warming  their  small  apartments  by 
little  close  stoves  of  iron,  liable  to  be  heated  red-hot,  and  thereby  to 
absolutely  destroy  the  purity  of  the  air,  one  would  not  be  so  much 
astonished  at  the  result,  because  it  is  so  difficult  to  preserve  the  poor- 
est class  from  suffering,  in  some  way  or  other,  in  great  cities.  But 
it  is  by  no  means  only  in  the  houses  of  those  who  have  slender 
means  of  subsistence,  that  this  is  the  case.  It  is  safe  to  say  that 
nine-tenths  of  all  the  houses  in  the  northern  States,  whether  belong- 
ing to  rich  or  poor,  are  entirely  unventilated,  and  heated  at  the  pres- 
ent moment  by  close  stoves ! 

It  is  absolutely  a  matter  of  preference  on  the  part  of  thousands, 
with  whom  the  trifling  difference  between  one  mode  of  heating  and 
another  is  of  no  account.  Even  in  the  midst  of  the  country,  where 
there  is  still  wood  in  abundance,  the  farmer  will  sell  that  wood  and 
buy  coal,  so  that  he  may  have  a  little  demon — alias  a  black,  cheer- 
less close  stove — in  the  place  of  that  genuine,  hospitable,  wholesome 
friend  and  comforter,  an  open  wood  fireplace. 

And  in  order  not  to  leave  one  unconverted  soul  in  the  wilder- 
ness, the  stove  inventors  have  lately  brought  out  "a  new  article,"  for 
forest  countries,  where  coal  is  not  to  be  had  either  for  love  or  barter — an 
"  air-tight  stove  for  burning  wood."  The  seductive,  convenient,  mon- 
strous thing !  "  It  consumes  one-fifth  of  the  fuel  which  was  needed 
by  the  open  chimney — is  so  neat  and  clean,  makes  no  dust,  and 
gives  no  trouble."  All  quite  true,  dear,  considerate  housewife — all 
quite  true ;  but  that  very  stove  causes  your  husband  to  pay  twice 
its  savings  to  the  family  doctor  before  two  winters  are  past,  and  gives 
you  thrice  as  much  trouble  in  nursing  the  sick  in  your  family,  as 
you  formerly  spent  in  taking  care  of  the  fire  in  your  chimney  cor- 
ner,— besides  depriving  you  of  the  most  delightful  of  all  household 
occupations. 

Our  countrymen  generally  have  a  vast  deal  of  national  pride, 
and  national  sensitiveness,  and  we  honor  them  for  it.  It  is  the  warp 
and  Avoof,  out  of  which  the  stuff  of  national  improvement  is  woven, 


THE  FAVORITE  POISON  OF  AMERICA. 


281 


When  a  nation  has  become  quite  indifferent  as  to  what  it  has  done, 
or  can  do,  then  there  is  nothing  left  but  for  its  prophets  to  utter  la- 
mentations over  it. 

Now  there  is  a  curious  but  indisputable  fact  (somebody  must  say 
it),  touching  our  present  condition  and  appearance,  as  a  nation  of 
men,  women  and  children,  in  which  we  Americans  compare  most 
unfavorably  with  the  people  of  Europe,  and  especially  with  those 
of  northern  Europe — England  and  France,  for  example.  It  is 
neither  in  religion  or  morality,  law  or  liberty.  In  these  great  essen- 
tials, every  American  feels  that  his  country  is  the  birthplace  of  a 
larger  number  of  robust  and  healthy  souls  than  any  other.  But  in 
the  bodily  condition,  the  signs  of  physical  health,  and  all  that  con- 
stitutes the  outward  aspect  of  the  men  and  women  of  the  United 
States,  our  countrymen,  and  especially  countrywomen,  compare  most 
unfavorably  with  all  but  the  absolutely  starving  classes,  on  the  other 
side  of  the  Atlantic.  So  completely  is  this  the  fact,  that,  though 
we  are  unconscious  of  it  at  home,  the  first  thing  (especially  of  late 
years)  which  strikes  an  American,  returning  from  abroad,  is  the  pale 
and  sickly  countenances  of  his  friends,  acquaintances,  and  almost 
every  one  he  meets  in  the  streets  of  large  towns, — every  other  man 
looking  as  if  he  had  lately  recovered  from  a  fit  of  illness.  The  men 
look  so  pale  and  the  women  so  delicate,  that  his  eye,  accustomed  to 
the  higher  hues  of  health,  and  the  more  vigorous  physical  condition 
of  transatlantic  men  and  women,  scarcely  credits  the  assertion  of 
old  acquaintances,  when  they  assure  him  that  they  were  "  never 
better  in  their  lives." 

With  this  sort  of  impression  weighing  disagreeably  on  our  mind, 
on  returning  from  Europe  lately,  we  fancied  it  worth  our  while  to 
plunge  two  hundred  or  three  hundred  miles  into  the  interior  of  the 
State  of  New-York.  It  would  be  pleasant,  we  thought,  to  see,  not 
only  the  rich  forest  scenery  opened  by  the  new  railroad  to  Lake 
Erie,  but  also  (for  we  felt  confident  they  were  there)  some  good, 
hearty,  fresh-looking  lads  and  lasses  among  the  farmers'  sons  and 
daughters. 

We  were  for  the  most  part  disappointed.  Certainly  the  men, 
especially  the  young  men,  who  live  mostly  in  the  open  air,  are  heal- 
thy and  robust.    But  the  daughters  of  the  farmers — they  are  as 


282 


RURAL  ARCHITECTURE. 


delicate  and  pale  as  lilies  of  the  valley,  or  fine  ladies  of  the  Fifth 
Avenue.  If  one  catches  a  glimpse  of  a  rose  in  their  cheeks,  it  is 
the  pale  rose  of  the  hot-house,  and  not  the  fresh  glow  of  the  gardeu 
damask.  Alas,  we  soon  discovered  the  reason.  They,  too,  live  for 
seven  months  of  the  year  in  unventilated  rooms,  heated  by  close 
stoves  !  The  fireplaces  are  closed  up,  and  ruddy  complexions  have 
vanished  with  them.  Occasionally,  indeed,  one  meets  with  an  ex- 
ception ;  some  bright-eyed,  young,  rustic  Hebe,  whose  rosy  cheeks 
and  round,  elastic  figure  would  make  you  believe  that  the  world  has 
not  all  grown  "  delicate ;"  and  if  you  inquire,  you  will  learn,  proba- 
bly, that  she  is  one  of  those  whose  natural  spirits  force  them  out 
continually,  in  the  open  air,  so  that  she  has,  as  yet,  in  that  way 
escaped  any  considerable  doses  of  the  national  poison. 

Now  that  we  are  fairly  afloat  on  this  dangerous  sea,  we  must 
unburthen  our  heart  sufficiently  to  say,  that  neither  in  England  nor 
France  does  one  meet  with  so  much  beauty — certainly  not,  so  far  as 
charming  eyes  and  expressive  faces  go  towards  constituting  beauty 
— as  in  America.  But  alas,  on  the  other  hand,  as  compared  with 
the  elastic  figures  and  healthful  frames  abroad,  American  beauty  is  as 
evanescent  as  a  dissolving  view,  contrasting  with  a  real  and  living 
landscape.  What  is  with  us  a  sweet  dream,  from  sixteen  to  twenty- 
five,  is  there  a  permanent  reality  till  forty-five  or  fifty. 

We  should  think  it  might  be  a  matter  of  climate,  were  it  not 
that  we  saw,  as  the  most  common  thing,  even  finer  complexions 
in  France — yes,  in  the  heart  of  Paris,  and  especially  among  the 
peasantry,  who  are  almost  wholly  in  the  open  air — than  in  England. 

And  what,  then,  is  the  mystery  of  fine  physical  health,  which 
is  so  much  better  understood  in  the  old  world  than  the  new  ? 

The  first  transatlantic  secret  of  health,  is  a  much  longer  time 
passed  daily  in  the  open  air,  by  all  classes  of  people  ;  the  second,  the 
better  modes  of  heating  and  ventilating  the  rooms  in  which  they  live. 

Regular  daily  exercise  in  the  open  air,  both  as  a  duty  and  a 
pleasure,  is  something  looked  upon  in  a  very  different  light  on  the 
two  different  sides  of  the  Atlantic.  On  this  side  of  the  water,  if  a 
person — say  a  professional  man,  or  a  merchant — is  seen  regularly 
devoting  a  certain  portion  of  the  day  to  exercise,  and  the  preserva- 
tion of  his  bodily  powers,  he  is  looked  upon  as  a  valetudinarian, — 


THE  FAVORITE  POISON  OF  AMERICA. 


283 


an  invalid,  who  is  obliged  to  take  care  of  himself,  poor  soul !  and 
his  friends  daily  meet  him  with  sympathizing  looks,  hoping  he  "  feels 
better,"  etc.  As  for  ladies,  if  there  is  not  some  object  in  taking  a 
walk,  they  look  upon  it  as  the  most  stupid  and  unmeaning  thing 
in  the  world. 

On  the  other  side  of  the  water,  a  person  who  should  neglect  the 
pleasure  of  breathing  the  free  air  for  a  couple  of  hours,  daily,  or 
should  shun  the  duty  of  exercise,  is  suspected  of  slight  lunacy ;  and 
ladies  who  should  prefer  continually  to  devote  their  leisure  to  the 
solace  of  luxurious  cushions,  rather  than  an  exhilarating  ride  or  walk, 
are  thought  a  little  tete  montee.  What,  in  short,  is  looked  upon  as 
a  virtue  there,  is  only  regarded  as  a  matter  of  fancy  here.  Hence, 
an  American  generally  shivers,  in  an  air  that  is  only  grateful  and 
bracing  to  an  Englishman,  and  looks  blue  in  Paris,  in  weather  when 
the  Parisians  sit  with  the  casement  windows  of  their  saloons  wide 
open.  Yet  it  is,  undoubtedly,  all  a  matter  of  habit ;  and  we  Yan- 
kees, (we  mean  those  of  us  not  forced  to  "rough  it,")  with  the  tough- 
est natural  constitutions  in  the  world,  nurse  ourselves,  as  a  people, 
into  the  least  robust  and  most  susceptible  physiques  in  existence. 

So  much  for  the  habit  of  exercise  in  the  open  air.  Now  let  us 
look  at  our  mode  of  warming  and  ventilating  our  dwellings ;  for  it 
is  here  that  the  national  poison  is  engendered,  and  here  that  the 
ghostly  expression  is  begotten. 

However  healthy  a  person  may  be,  he  can  neither  look  healthy 
nor  remain  in  sound  health  long,  if  he  is  in  the  habit  of  breathing 
impure  air.  As  sound  health  depends  upon  pure  blood,  and  there 
can  be  no  pure  blood  in  one's  veins  if  it  is  not  repurified  continual- 
ly by  the  action  of  pure  air  upon  it,  through  the  agency  of  the 
lungs  (the  whole  purpose  of  breathing  being  to  purify  and  vitalize 
the  blood ),  it  follows,  that  if  a  nation  of  people  will,  from  choice, 
live  in  badly  ventilated  rooms,  full  of  impure  air,  they  must  become 
pale  and  sallow  in  complexions.  It  may  not  largely  affect  the 
health  of  the  men,  who  are  more  or  less  called  into  the  open  air  by 
their  avocations,  but  the  health  of  women  {ergo  the  constitutions  of 
children),  and  all  those  who  are  confined  to  rooms  or  offices  heated 
in  this  way,  must  gradually  give  way  under  the  influence  of  the 
poison.  Hence,  the  delicacy  of  thousands  and  tens  of  thousands 
of  the  sex  in  America. 


284 


RURAL  ARCHITECTURE. 


"  And  how  can  you  satisfy  me,"  asks  some  blind  lover  of  stoves, 
"  that  the  air  of  a  room  heated  by  a  close  stove  is  deleterious  ? " 
Very  easily  indeed,  if  you  will  listen  to  a  few  words  of  reason. 

It  is  well  established  that  a  healthy  man  must  have  about  a  pint  of 
air  at  a  breath  ;  that  he  breathes  above  a  thousand  times  in  an  hour ; 
and  that,  as  a  matter  beyond  dispute,  he  requires  about  fifty-seven 
hogsheads  of  air  in  twenty  four  hours. 

Besides  this,  it  is  equally  well  settled,  that  as  common  air  con- 
sists of  a  mixture  of  two  gases,  one  healthy  (oxygen),  and  the  other 
unhealthy  (nitrogen),  the  air  we  have  once  breathed,  having,  by 
passing  through  the  lungs,  been  deprived  of  the  most  healthful 
gas,  is  little  less  than  unmixed  poison  (nitrogen). 

Now,  a  room  warmed  by  an  open  fireplace  or  grate,  is  neces- 
sarily more  or  less  ventilated,  by  the  very  process  of  combustion 
going  on  ;  because,  as  a  good  deal  of  the  air  of  the  room  goes  up 
the  chimney,  besides  the  smoke  and  vapor  of  the  fire,  a  corresponding 
amount  of  fresh  air  comes  in  at  the  windows  and  door  crevices  to 
supply  its  place.  '  The  room,  in  other  words,  is  tolerably  well  sup- 
plied with  fresh  air  for  breathing. 

But  let  us  take  the  case  of  a  room  heated  by  a  close  stove.  The 
chimney  is  stopped  up,  to  begin  with.  The  room  is  shut  up.  The 
windows  are  made  pretty  tight  to  keep  out  the  cold ;  and  as  there  is 
very  little  air  carried  out  of  the  room  by  the  stove-pipe,  (the  stove  is 
perhaps  on  the  air-tight  principle, — that  is,  it  requires  the  minimum 
amount  of  air,)  there  is  little  fresh  air  coming  in  through  the  cre- 
vices to  supply  any  vacuum.  Suppose  the  room  holds  300  hogs- 
heads of  air.  If  a  single  person  requires  57  hogsheads  of  fresh 
air  per  day,  it  would  last  four  persons  but  about  twenty-four  hours, 
and  the  stove  would  require  half  as  much  more.  But,  as  a  man 
renders  noxious  as  much  again  air  as  he  expires  from  his  lungs,  it 
actually  happens  that  in  four  or  five  hours  all  the  air  in  this  room 
has  been  either  breathed  over,  or  is  so  mixed  with  the  impure  air 
which  has  been  breathed  over,  that  it  is  all  thoroughly  poisoned, 
and  unfit  for  healthful  respiration.  A  person  with  his  senses  un- 
blunted,  has  only  to  go  into  an  ordinary  unventilated  room,  heated 
by  a  stove,  to  perceive  at  once,  by  the  effect  on  the  lungs,  how  dead, 
stifled,  and  destitute  of  all  elasticity  the  air  is. 


THE  FAVORITE  POISON  OF  AMERICA. 


285 


And  this  is  the  air  which  four-fifths  of  our  countrymen  and 
countrywomen  breathe  in  their  homes, — not  from  necessity,  but 
from  choice.* 

This  is  the  air  which  those  who  travel  by  hundreds  of  thousands 
in  our  railroad  cars,  closed  up  in  winter,  and  heated  with  close 
stoves,  breathe  for  hours — or  often  entire  days.f 

This  is  the  air  which  fills  the  cabins  of  closely  packed  steam- 
boats, always  heated  by  large  stoves,  and  only  half  ventilated ;  the 
air  breathed  by  countless  numbers — both  waking  or  sleeping. 

This  is  the  air — no,  this  is  even  salubrious  compared  with  the 
air — that  is  breathed  by  hundreds  and  thousands  in  almost  all  our 
crowded  lecture-rooms,  concert-rooms,  public  halls,  and  private  as- 
semblies, all  over  the  country.  They  are  nearly  all  heated  by  stoves 
or  furnaces,  with  very  imperfect  ventilation,  or  no  ventilation  at  all. 

Is  it  too  much  to  call  it  the  national  poison,  this  continual  at- 
mosphere of  close  stoves,  which,  whether  travelling  or  at  home,  we 
Americans  are  content  to  breathe,  as  if  it  were  the  air  of  Par- 
adise ? 

We  very  well  know  that  we  have  a  great  many  readers  who 
abominate  stoves,  and  whose  houses  are  warmed  and  ventilated  in 
an  excellent  manner.  But  they  constitute  no  appreciable  fraction 
of  the  vast  portion  of  our  countrymen  who  love  stoves — fill  their 
houses  with  them — are  ignorant  of  their  evils,  and'  think  ventilation 
and  fresh  air  physiological  chimeras,  which  may  be  left  to  the 
speculations  of  doctors  and  learned  men. 

*  We  have  said  that  the  present  generation  of  stove-reared  farmers' 
daughters  are  pale  and  delicate  in  appearance.  We  may  add  that  the  most 
healthy  and  blooming  looking  American  women,  are  those  of  certain  fami- 
lies where  exercise,  and  fresh  air,  and  ventilation,  are  matters  of  conscience 
and  duty  here  as  in  Europe. 

f  Why  the  ingenuity  of  clever  Yankees  has  not  been  directed  to  warm- 
ing railroad  cars  (by  means  of  steam  conveyed  through  metal  tubes,  running 
under  the  floor,  and  connected  with  flexibl'e  coupling  pipes,)  we  cannot  well 
understand.  It  would  be  at  once  cheaper  than  the  present  mode,  (since 
waste  steam  could  be  used,)  and  far  more  wholesome.  Railroad  cars  have, 
it  is  true,  ventilators  at  the  top  for  the  escape  of  foul  air,  but  no  apertures 
in  the  floor  for  the  inlet  of  fresh  air !  It  is  like  emptying  a  barrel  without 
a  vent. 


286 


RURAL  ARCHITECTURE. 


And  so,  every  other  face  that  one  meets  in  America,  has  a 
ghostly  paleness  about  it,  that  would  make  a  European  stare.* 

What  is  to  be  done?  "Americans  will  have  stoves."  They 
suit  the  country,  especially  the  new  country ;  they  are  cheap,  labor- 
saving,  clean.  If  the  more  enlightened  and  better  informed  throw 
them  aside,  the  great  bulk  of  the  people  will  not.  Stoves  are,  we 
are  told,  in  short,  essentially  democratic  and  national. 

We  answer,  let  us  ventilate  our  rooms,  and  learn  to  live  more  in 
the  open  air.  If  om*  countrymen  will  take  poison  in,  with  every 
breath  which  they  inhale  in  their  houses  and  all  their  public  gather- 
ings, let  them  dilute  it  largely,  and  they  may  escape  from  a  part  at 
least  of  the  evils  of  taking  it  in  such  strong  doses. 

We  have  not  space  here  to  show  in  detail  the  best  modes  of  ven- 
tilating now  in  use.  But  they  may  be  found  described  in  several 
works,  especially  devoted  to  the  subject,  published  lately.  In  our 
volume  on  Country  Houses,  we  have  briefly  shown,  not  only  the 
principles  of  warming  rooms,  but  the  most  simple  and  complete 
modes  of  ventilation, — from  Arnott's  chimney  valve,  which  may 
for  a  small  cost  be  easily  placed  in  the  chimney  flue  of  any  room, 
to  Emerson's  more  complete  apparatus,  by  which  the  largest  apart- 
ments, or  every  room  in  the  largest  house,  may  be  warmed  and 
ventilated  at  the  same  time,  in  the  most  complete  and  satisfactory 
manner. 

We  assure  our  readers  that  we  are  the  more  in  earnest  upon 
this  subject,  because  they  are  so  apathetic.  As  they  would  shake 
a  man  about  falling  into  that  state  of  delightful  numbness  which 
precedes  freezing  to  death,  all  the  more  vigorously  in  proportion  to 
his  own  indifference  and  unconsciousness  to  his  sad  state,  so  we  are 
the  more  emphatic  in  what  we  have  said,  because  we  see  the  na- 
tional poison  begins  to  work,  and  the  nation  is  insensible. 

Pale  countrymen  and  countrywomen,  rouse  yourselves  !  Con- 
sider that  God  has  given  us  an  atmosphere  of  pure,  salubrious, 
health-giving  air,  45  miles  high,  and — ventilate  your  houses. 

*  We  ought  not,  perhaps,  to  include  the  Germans  and  Eussians.  They 
also  love  stoves,  and  the  poison  of  bad  air  indoors,  and  therefore  have  not 
the  look  of  health  of  other  European  nations,  though  they  live  far  more  in 
the  open  air  than  we  do. 


TREES. 


TREES. 


I. 

THE  BEAUTIFUL  IN  A  TREE. 

February,  1851. 

IN  what  does  the  beauty  of  a  tree  consist  ?  We  mean,  of  course, 
what  may  strictly  be  called  an  ornamental  tree — not  a  tree 
planted  for  its  fruit  in  the  orchard,  or  growing  for  timber  in  the 
forest,  but  standing  alone  in  the  lawn  or  meadow — growing  in 
groups  in  the  pleasure-ground,  overarching  the  roadside,  or  border- 
ing some  stately  avenue. 

Is  it  not,  first  of  all,  that  such  a  tree,  standing  where  it  can  grow 
untouched,  and  develop  itself  on  all  sides,  is  one  of  the  finest  pictures 
of  symmetry  and  proportion  that  the  eye  can  any  where  meet  with  ? 
The  tree  may  be  young,  or  it  may  be  old,  but  if  left  to  nature,  it  is 
sure  to  grow  into  some  form  that  courts  the  eye  and  satisfies  it.  It 
may  branch  out  boldly  and  grandly,  like  the  oak ;  its  top  may  be  broad 
and  stately,  like  the  chestnut,  or  drooping  and  elegant,  like  the  elm, 
or  delicate  and  airy  like  the  birch,  but  it  is  sure  to  grow  into  the  type 
form — either  beautiful  or  picturesque — that  nature  stamped  upon  its 
species,  and  which  is  the  highest  beauty  that  such  tree  can  possess. 
It  is  true,  that  nature  plants  some  trees,  like  the  fir  and  pine,  in  the 
fissures  of  the  rock,  and  on  the  edge  of  the  precipice ;  that  she  twists 
their  boughs  and  gnarls  their  stems,  by  storms  and  tempests — there- 
by adding  to  their  picturesque  power  in  sublime  and  grand  scenery ; 
but  as  a  general  truth,  it  may  be  clearly  stated  that  the  Beautiful,  in 
19 


290 


TKEE8. 


a  tree  of  any  kind,  is  never  so  fully  developed  as  when,  in  a  genial 
soil  and  climate,  it  stands  quite  alone,  stretching  its  boughs  upward 
freely  to  the  sky,  and  outward  to  the  breeze,  and  even  downward 
towards  the  earth — almost  touching  it  with  their  graceful  sweep,  till 
only  a  glimpse  of  the  fine  trunk  is  had  at  its  spreading  base,  and 
the  whole  top  is  one  great  globe  of  floating,  waving,  drooping,  or 
sturdy  luxuriance,  giving  one  as  perfect  an  idea  of  symmetry  and 
proportion,  as  can  be  found  short  of  the  Grecian  Apollo  itself. 

We  have  taken  the  pains  to  present  this  beau-ideal  of  a  fine  or- 
namental tree  to  our  readers,  in  order  to  contrast  it  with  another  pic- 
ture, not  from  nature — but  by  the  hands  of  quite  another  master. 

This  master  is  the  man  whose  passion  is  to  prune  trees.  To  his 
mind,  there  is  nothing  comparable  to  the  satisfaction  of  trimming  a 
tree.  A  tree  in  a  state  of  nature  is  a  no  more  respectable  object  than 
an  untamed  savage.  It  is  running  to  waste  with  leaves  and  bran- 
ches, and  has  none  of  the  look  of  civilization  about  it.  Only  let  him 
use  his  saw  for  a  short  time,  upon  any  young  specimen  just  growing 
into  adolescence,  and  throwing  out  its  delicate  branches  like  a  fine 
fall  of  drapery,  to  conceal  its  naked  trunk,  and  you  shall  see  how 
he  will  improve  its  appearance.  Yes,  he  will  trim  up  those  branches 
till  there  is  a  tall,  naked  stem,  higher  than  his  head.  That  shows 
that  the  tree  has  been  taken  care  of — has  been  trimmed — ergo, 
trained  and  educated  into  a  look  of  respectability.  This  is  his  great 
point — the  fundamental  law  of  sylvan  beauty  in  his  mind — a  bare 
pole  with  a  top  of  foliage  at  the  end  of  it.  If  he  cannot  do  this, 
he  may  content  himself  with  thinning  out  the  branches  to  let  in  the 
light,  or  clipping  them  at  the  ends  to  send  the  head  upwards,  or 
cutting  out  the  leader  to  make  it  spread  laterally.  But  though  the 
trees  formed  by  these  latter  modes  of  pruning,  are  well  enough, 
they  never  reach  that  exalted  standard,  which  has  for  its  type,  a  pole 
as  bare  as  a  ship's  mast,  with  only  a  flying  studding-sail  of  green 
boughs  at  the  end  of  it.* 

"We  suppose  this  very  common  pleasure — for  it  must  be  a 
pleasure — which  so  many  persons  find  in  trimming  up  ornamental 

*  Some  of  our  readers  may  not  be  aware  that  to  cut  off  the  side  branches 
on  a  young  trunk,  actually  lessens  the  growth  in  diameter  of  that  trunk  at 
once. 


THE  BEAUTIFUL  IN  A  TREE. 


291 


trees,  is  based  on  a  feeling  that  trees,  growing  quite  in  the  natural 
way,  must  be  capable  of  some  amelioration  by  art ;  and  as  pruning 
is  usually  acknowledged  to  be  useful  in  developing  certain  points  in 
a  fruit  tree,  a  like  good  purpose  will  be  reached  by  the  use  of  the 
knife  upon  an  ornamental  tree.  But  the  comparison  does  not  hold 
good — since  the  objects  aimed  at  are  essentially  different.  Pruning 
— at  least  all  useful  pruning — as  applied  to  fruit  trees,  is  applied  for 
the  purpose  of  adding  to,  diminishing,  or  otherwise  regulating  the 
fruitfulness  of  the  tree  ;  and  this,  in  many  cases,  is  effected  at  the 
acknowledged  diminution  of  the  growth,  luxuriance  and  beauty  of 
the  trees-so  far  as  spread  of  branches  and  prodigality  of  foliage  go. 
But  even  here,  the  pruner  who  prunes  only  for  the  sake  of  using  the 
knife  (like  heartless  young  surgeons  in  hospitals),  not  unfrequently 
goes  too  far,  injures  the  perfect  maturity  of  the  crop,  and  hastens  the 
decline  of  the  tree,  by  depriving  it  of  the  fair  proportions  which  na- 
ture has  established  between  the  leaf  and  the  fruit. 

But  for  the  most  part,  we  imagine  that  the  practice  we  complain 
of  is  a  want  of  perception  of  what  is  truly  beautiful  in  an  ornamen- 
tal tree.  It  seems  to  us  indisputable,  that  no  one  who  has  any  per- 
ception of  the  beautiful  in  nature,  could  ever  doubt  for  a  moment, 
that  a  fine  single  elm  or  oak,  such  as  we  may  find  in  the  valley  of 
the  Connecticut  or  the  Genesee,  which  has  never  been  touched  by 
the  knife,  is  the  most  perfect  standard  of  sylvan  grace,  symmetry, 
dignity,  and  finely  balanced  proportions,  that  it  is  possible  to  con- 
ceive. One  would  no  more  wish  to  touch  it  with  saw  or  axe  (unless 
to  remove  some  branch  that  has  fallen  into  decay),  than  to  give  a 
nicer  curve  to  the  rainbow,  or  add  freshness  to  the  dew-drop.  If  any 
of  our  readers,  who  still  stand  by  the  pruning-knife,  will  only  give 
themselves  up  to  the  study  of  such  trees  as  these — trees  that  have 
the  most  completely  developed  forms  that  nature  stamps  upon  the 
species,  they  are  certain  to  arrive  at  the  same  conclusions.  For  the 
beautiful  in  nature,  though  not  alike  visible  to  every  man,  never 
fails  to  dawn,  sooner  or  later,  upon  all  who  seek  her  in  the  right 
spirit. 

And  in  art  too — no  great  master  of  landscape,  no  Claude,  or 
Poussin,  or  Turner,  paints  mutilated  trees ;  but  trees  of  grand  and 
majestic  heads,  full  of  health  and  majesty,  or  grandly  stamped  with 


202 


TREES. 


the  wild  irregularity  of  nature  in  her  sterner  types.  The  few  Dutch 
or  French  artists  who  are  the  exceptions  to  this,  and  have  copied 
those  emblems  of  pruned  deformity — the  pollard  trees  that  figure 
in  the  landscapes  of  the  Low  Countries — have  given  local  truthfulness 
to  their  landscapes,  at  the  expense  of  every  thing  like  sylvan  loveli- 
ness. A  pollard  willow  should  be  the  very  type  and  model  of  beauty 
in  the  eye  of  the  champion  of  the  pruning  saw.  Its  finest  parallels 
in  the  art  of  mending  nature's  proportions  for  the  sake  of  beauty, 
are  in  the  flattened  heads  of  a  certain  tribe  of  Indians,  and  the  de- 
formed feet  of  Chinese  women.  What  nature  has  especially  shaped 
for  a  delight  to  the  eye,  and  a  fine  suggestion  to  the  spiritual  sense, 
as  a  beautiful  tree,  or  the  human  form  divine,  man  should  not  lightly 
undertake  to  remodel  or  clip  of  its  fair  proportions. 


n. 


HOW  TO  POPULARIZE  THE  TASTE  FOR  PLANTING. 

July,  1852. 

HOW  to  popularize  that  taste  for  rural  beauty,  which  gives  to 
every  beloved  home  in  the  country  its  greatest  outward  charm, 
and  to  the  country  itself  its  highest  attraction,  is  a  question  which 
must  often  occur  to  many  of  our  readers.  A  traveller  never  jour- 
neys through  England  without  lavishing  all  the  epithets  of  admira- 
tion on  the  rural  beauty  of  that  gardenesque  country ;  and  his 
praises  are  as  justly  due  to  the  way-side  cottages  of  the  humble 
laborers  (whose  pecuniary  condition  of  life  is  far  below  that  of  our 
numerous  small  householders),  as  to  the  great  palaces  and  villas. 
Perhaps  the  loveliest  and  most  fascinating  of  the  "  cottage  homes," 
of  which  Mrs.  Hemans  has  so  touchingly  sung,  are  the  clergymen's 
dwellings  in  that  country ;  dwellings,  for  the  most  part,  of  very  mod- 
erate size,  and  no  greater  cost  than  are  common  in  all  the  most 
thriving  and  populous  parts  of  the  Union — but  which,  owing  to  the 
love  of  horticulture,  and  the  taste  for  something  above  the  merely 
useful,  which  characterizes  their  owners,  as  a  class,  are,  for  the  most 
part,  radiant  with  the  bloom  and  embellishment  of  the  loveliest 
flowers  and  shrubs. 

The  contrast  with  the  comparatively  naked  and  neglected  coun, 
try  dwellings  that  are  the  average  rural  tenements  of  our  country  at 
large,  is  very  striking.  Undoubtedly,  this  is,  in  part,  owing  to  the 
fact  that  it  takes  a  longer  time,  as  Lord  Bacon  said  a  century  ago, 
"  to  garden  finely  than  to  build  stately."  But  the  newness  of  our 
civilization  is  not  sufficient  apology.    If  so,  we  should  be  spared  the 


294 


TREES. 


exhibition  of  gay  carpets,  fine  mirrors  and  furniture  in  the  "  front 
parlor,"  of  many  a  mechanic's,  working-man's,  and  farmer's  comfort 
able  dwelling,  where  the  "  bare  and  bald "  have  pretty  nearly  su- 
preme control  in  the  "  front  yard." 

What  we  lack,  perhaps,  more  than  all,  is,  not  the  capacity  to 
perceive  and  enjoy  the  beauty  of  ornamental  trees  and  shrubs — the 
rural  embellishment  alike  of  the  cottage  and  the  villa,  but  we  are  de- 
ficient in  the  knowledge  and  the  opportunity  of  knowing  how  beau- 
tiful human  habitations  are  made  by  a  little  taste,  time,  and  means, 
expended  i»  this  way; 

Abroad,  it  is  clearly  seen,  that  the  taste  has  descended  from  the 
palace  of  the  noble,  and  the  public  parks  and  gardens  of  the  nation, 
to  the  hut  of  the  simple  peasant ;  but  here,  while  our  institutions 
have  wisely  prevented  the  perpetuation  of  accumulated  estates,  that 
would  speedily  find  their  expression  in  all  the  luxury  of  rural  taste, 
we  have  not  yet  risen  to  that  general  diffusion  of  culture  and  com- 
petence which  may  one  day  give  to  the  many,  what  in  the  old  world 
belongs  mainly  to  the  favored  few.  In  some  localities,  where  that 
point  has  in  some  measure  been  arrived  at  already,  the  result  that 
we  anticipate  has,  in  a  good  degree,  already  been  attained.  And 
there  are,  probably,  more  pretty  rural  homes  within  ten  miles  of 
Boston,  owned  by  those  who  live  in  them,  and  have  made  them, 
than  ever  sprung  up  in  so  short  a  space  of  time,  in  any  part  of  the 
world.  The  taste  once  formed  there,  it  has  become  contagious,  and 
is  diffusing  itself  among  all  conditions  of  men,  and  gradually  elevating 
and  making  beautiful,  the  whole  neighborhood  of  that  populous  city. 

In  the  country  at  large,  however,  even  now,  there  cannot  be  said 
to  be  any  thing  like  a  general  taste  for  gardening,  or  for  embellish- 
ing the  houses  of  the  people.  "We  are  too  much  occupied  with 
making  a  great  deal,  to  have  reached  that  point  when  a  man  or  a 
people  thinks  it  wiser  to  understand  how  to  enjoy  a  little  well,  than 
to  exhaust  both  mind  and  body  in  getting  an  indefinite  more.  And 
there  are  also  many  who  would  gladly  do  something  to  give  a  senti- 
ment to  their  houses,  but  are  ignorant  both  of  the  materials  and  the 
way  to  set  about  it.  Accordingly,  they  plant  odorous  ailanthuses 
and  filthy  poplars,  to  the  neglect  of  graceful  elms  and  salubrious 
maples. 


HOW  TO  POPULARIZE  THE  TASTE  FOR  PLANTING.  295 

The  influence  of  commercial  gardens  on  the  neighborhood  where 
they  are  situated,  is  one  of  the  best  proofs  of  the  growth  of  taste — 
that  our  people  have  no  obtuseness  of  faculty,  as  to  what  is  beauti- 
ful, but  only  lack  information  and  example  to  embellish  with  the 
heartiest  good  will.  Take  Rochester,  N.  Y.,  for  instance — which,  at 
the  present  moment,  has  perhaps  the  largest  and  most  active  nurse- 
ries in  the  Union.  We  are  confident  that  the  aggregate  planting 
of  fruits  and  ornamental  trees,  within  fifty  miles  of  Rochester,  during 
the  last  ten  years,  has  been  twice  as  much  as  has  taken  place,  in  the 
same  time,  in  any  three  of  the  southern  States.  Philadelphia  has 
long  been  famous  for  her  exotic  gardens,  and  now  even  the  little 
yard  plats  of  the  city  dwellings,  are  filled  with  roses,  jasmines, 
lagestroemias,  and  the  like.  Such  facts  as  these  plainly  prove  to  us, 
that  only  give  our  people  a  knowledge  of  the  beauty  of  fine  trees 
and  plants,  and  the  method  of  cultivating  them,  and  there  is  no 
sluggishness  or  inaptitude  on  the  subject  in  the  public  mind. 

In  looking  about  for  the  readiest  method  of  diffusing  a  know- 
ledge of  beautiful  trees  and  plants,  and  thereby  bettering  our  homes 
and  our  country,  several  means  suggest  themselves,  which  are  worthy 
of  attention. 

The  first  of  these  is,  by  what  private  individuals  may  do. 

There  is  scarcely  a  single  fine  private  garden  in  the  countiy, 
which  does  not  possess  plants  that  are  perhaps  more  or  less  coveted 
— or  would  at  least  be  greatly  prized  by  neighbors  who  do  not  pos- 
sess, and  perhaps  cannot  easily  procure  them.  Many  owners  of  such 
places,  cheerfully  give  away  to  their  neighbors,  any  spare  plants  that 
they  may  possess ;  but  the  majority  decline,  for  the  most  part,  to 
give  away  plants  at  all,  because  the  indiscriminate  practice  subjects 
them  to  numerous  and  troublesome  demands  upon  both  the  time 
and  generosity  of  even  the  most  liberally  disposed.  But  every  gen- 
tleman who  employs  a  gardener,  could  well  afford  to  allow  that  gar- 
dener to  spend  a  couple  of  days  in  a  season,  in  propagating  some 
one  or  two  really  valuable  trees,  shrubs,  or  plants,  that  would  be  a 
decided  acquisition  to  the  gardens  of  his  neighborhood.  One  or  two 
specimens  of  such  tree  or  plant,  thus  raised  in  abundance,  might  be 
distributed  freely  during  the  planting  season,  or  during  a  given  week 
of  the  same,  to  all  who  would  engage  to  plant  and  take  care  of  the 


296 


TREES. 


same  in  their  own  grounds ;  and  thus  this  tree  or  plant  would  soon 
become  widely  distributed  about  the  whole  adjacent  country.  An- 
other season,  still  another  desirable  tree  or  plant  might  be  taken  in 
hand,  and  when  ready  for  home  planting,  might  be  scattered  broad- 
cast among  those  who  desire  to  possess  it,  and  so  the  labor  of  love 
might  go  on  as  convenience  dictated,  till  the  greater  part  of  the  gar- 
dens, however  small,  within  a  considerable  circumference,  would  con- 
tain at  least  several  of  the  most  valuable,  useful,  and  ornamental 
trees  and  shrubs  for  the  climate. 

The  second  means  is  by  what  the  nurserymen  may  do. 

We  are  very  well  aware  that  the  first  thought  which  will  cross 
the  mind  of  a  selfish  and  narrow-minded  nurseryman,  (if  any  such 
read  the  foregoing  paragraph,)  is  that  such  a  course  of  gratuitous 
distribution  of  good  plants,  on  the  part  of  private  persons,  will 
speedily  ruin  his  business.  But  he  was  never  more  greatly 
mistaken,  as  both  observation  and  reason  will  convince  him.  Who 
are  the  nurseryman's  best  customers?  That  class  of  men  who 
have  long  owned  a  garden,  whether  it  be  half  a  rood  or  many 
acres,  who  have  never  planted  trees — or,  if  any,  have  but  those  not 
worth  planting  ?  Not  at  all.  His  best  customers  are  those  who 
have  formed  a  taste  for  trees  by  planting  them,  and  who,  having 
got  a  taste  for  improving,  are  seldom  idle  in  the  matter,  and  keep 
pretty  regular  accounts  with  the  dealers  in  trees.  If  you  cannot 
get  a  person  who  thinks  he  has  but  little  time  or  taste  for  improving 
his  place  to  buy  trees,  and  he  will  accept  a  plant,  or  a  fruit-tree,  or 
a  shade-tree,  now  and  then,  from  a  neighbor  whom  he  knows  to  be 
"  curious  in  such  things " — by  all  means,  we  say  to  the  nursery- 
man, encourage  him  to  plant  at  any  rate  and  all  rates. 

If  that  man's  tree  turns  out  to  his  satisfaction,  he  is  an  amateur, 
one  only  beginning  to  pick  the  shell,  to  be  sure — but  an  amateur 
full  fledged  by-and-by.  If  he  once  gets  a  taste  for  gardening  down- 
right— if  the  flavor  of  his  own  rareripes  touch  his  palate  but  once, 
as  something  quite  different  from  what  he  has  always,  like  a  con- 
tented, ignorant  donkey,  bought  in  the  market — if  his  Malmaison 
rose,  radiant  with  the  sentiment  of  the  best  of  French  women,  and 
the  loveliness  of  intrinsic  bud-beauty  once  touches  his  hitherto  duU 
eyes,  so  that  the  scales  of  his  blindness  to  the  fact  that  one  rose 


HOW  TO  POPULARIZE  THE  TASTE  FOR  PLANTING.  297 

"  differs  from  another,"  fall  off  for  ever — then  we  say,  thereafter  he 
is  one  of  the  nurseryman's  best  customers.  Begging  is  both  too 
slow  and  too  dependent  a  position  for  him,  and  his  garden  soon 
fills  up  by  ransacking  tbe  nurseryman's  catalogues,  and  it  is  more 
likely  to  be  swamped  by  the  myriad  of  things  which  he  would 
think  very  much  alike,  (if  he  had  not  bought  them  by  different 
appellations,)  than  by  any  empty  spaces  waiting  for  the  liberality  of 
more  enterprising  cultivators. 

And  thus,  if  the  nurseryman  can  satisfy  himself  with  our  rea- 
soning that  he  ought  not  object  to  the  amateur's  becoming  a  gra- 
tuitous distributor  of  certain  plants,  we  would  persuade  him  for 
much  the  same  reason,  to  follow  the  example  himself.  No  person 
can  propagate  a  tree  or  plant  with  so  little  cost,  and  so  much  ease, 
as  one  whose  business  it  is  to  do  so.  And  we  may  add,  no  one  is 
more  likely  to  know  the  really  desirable  varieties  of  trees  or  plants, 
than  he  is.  No  one  so  well  knows  as  himself  that  the  newest 
things — most  zealously  sought  after  at  high  prices — are  by  no 
means  those  which  will  give  the  most  permanent  satisfaction  in  a 
family  garden.  And  accordingly,  it  is  almost  always  the  older 
and  well-tried  standard  trees  and  plants — those  that  the  nursery- 
man can  best  afford  to  spare,  those  that  he  can  grow  most  cheaply, 
— that  he  would  best  serve  the  diffusion  of  popular  taste  by  distri- 
buting gratis.  We  think  it  would  be  best  for  all  parties  if  the 
variety  were  very  limited — and  we  doubt  whether  the  distribution 
of  two  valuable  hardy  trees  or  climbers  for  five  years,  or  till  they 
became  so  common  all  over  the  surroundings  as  to  make  a  distinct 
feature  of  embellishment,  would  not  be  more  serviceable  than  dis- 
seminating a  larger  number  of  species.  It  may  appear  to  some  of 
our  commercial  readers,  an  odd  recommendation  to  urge  them  to 
give  away  precisely  that  which  it  is  their  business  to  sell — but  we 
are  not  talking  at  random,  when  we  say  most  confidently,  that  such 
a  course,  steadily  pursued  by  amateurs  and  nurserymen  throughout 
the  country,  for  ten  years,  would  increase  the  taste  for  planting,  and 
the  demand  for  trees,  five  hundred  fold. 

The  third  means  is  by  what  the  Horticultural  Societies  may  do. 

We  believe  there  are  now  about  forty  Horticultural  Societies  hi 
North  America.    Hitherto  they  have  contented  themselves,  yeai 


298 


TREES. 


after  year,  with  giving  pretty  much  the  same  old  schedule  of  pre- 
miums for  the  best  cherries,  cabbages,  and  carnations,  all  over  the 
country — till  the  stimulus  begins  to  wear  out — somewhat  like  the 
effects  of  opium  or  tobacco,  on  confirmed  habitues.  Let  them  adopt 
our  scheme  of  popularizing  the  taste  for  horticulture,  by  giving 
premiums  of  certain  select  small  assortments  of  standard  fruit  trees, 
ornamental  trees,  shrubs,  and  vines,  (purchased  by  the  society  of 
the  nurserymen,)  to  the  cultivators  of  such  small  gardens — sub- 
urban door-yards — or  cottage  inclosures,  within  a  distance  of  ten 
miles  round,  as  the  inspecting  committee  shall  decide  to  be  best 
worthy,  by  their  air  of  neatness,  order,  and  attention,  of  such  pre- 
miums. In  this  way,  the  valuable  plants  will  fall  into  the  right 
hands  ;  the  vendor  of  trees  and  plants  will  be  directly  the  gainer, 
and  the  stimulus  given  to  cottage  gardens,  and  the  spread  of  the 
popular  taste,  will  be  immediate  and  decided. 

"  Tall  oaks  from  little  acorns  grow " — is  a  remarkably  trite 
aphorism,  but  one,  the  truth  of  which  no  one  who  knows  the  apti- 
tude of  our  people,  or  our  intrinsic  love  of  refinement  and  elegance, 
will  underrate  or  gainsay.  If,  by  such  simple  means  as  we  have 
here  pointed  out,  our  great  farm  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic,  with 
the  water-privilege  of  both  oceans,  could  be  made  to  wear  a  little 
less  the  air  of  Canada-thistle-dom,  and  show  a  little  more  sign  of 
blossoming  like  the  rose,  we  should  look  upon  it  as  a  step  so  much 
nearer  the  millennium.  In  Saxony,  the  traveller  beholds  with  no 
less  surprise  and  delight,  on  the  road  between  Wiessenfels  and 
Halle,  quantities  of  the  most  beautiful  and  rare  shrubs  and  flowers, 
growing  along  the  foot-paths,  and  by  the  sides  of  the  hedges  which 
line  the  public  promenades.  The  custom  prevails  there,  among 
private  individuals  who  have  beautiful  gardens,  of  annually  planting 
some  of  their  surplus  materiel  along  these  public  promenades,  for 
the  enjoyment  of  those  who  have  no  gardens.  And  the  custom  is 
met  in  the  same  beautiful  spirit  by  the  people  at  large  ;  for  in  the 
main,  those  embellishments  that  turn  the  highway  into  pleasure 
grounds,  are  respected,  and  grow  and  bloom  as  if  within  the  inclosures. 

Does  not  this  argue  a  civilization  among  these  "  down-trodden 
nations  "  of  Central  Europe,  that'  would  not  be  unwelcome  in  this, 
our  land  of  equal  rights  and  free  schools ! 


III. 


ON  PLANTING  SHADE-TREES. 

November,  1847. 

NOW  that  the  season  of  the  present  is  nearly  over ;  now  that 
spring  with  its  freshness  of  promise,  summer  with  its  luxury 
of  development,  and  autumn  with  its  fulfilment  of  fruitfulness,  have 
all  laid  their  joys  and  benefits  at  our  feet,  we  naturally  pause  for  a 
moment  to  see  what  is  to  be  done  in  the  rural  plans  of  the  future. 

The  planting  season  is  at  hand.  Our  correspondence  with  all 
parts  of  the  country  informs  us,  that  at  no  previous  time  has  the 
improvement  of  private  grounds  been  so  active  as  at  present.  New 
and  tasteful  residences  are  every  where  being  built.  New  gardens 
are  being  laid  out.  New  orchards  of  large  extent  are  rapidly  being 
planted.  In  short,  the  horticultural  zeal  of  the  country  is  not  only 
awake — it  is  brimfull  of  energy  and  activity. 

Private  enterprise  being  thus  in  a  fair  way  to  take  care  of  itself, 
we  feel  that  the  most  obvious  duty  is  to  endeavor  to  arouse  a  cor- 
responding spirit  in  certain  rural  improvements  of  a  more  public 
nature. 

We  therefore  return  again  to  a  subject  which  we  dwelt  upon  at 
some  length  last  spring — the  planting  of  shade-trees  in  the  streets 
of  our  rural  towns  and  villages. 

Pleasure  and  profit  are  certain,  sooner  or  later,  to  awaken  a  large 
portion  of  our  countrymen  to  the  advantages  of  improving  their 
own  private  grounds.  But  we  find  that  it  is  only  under  two  condi- 
tions that  many  public  improvements  are  carried  on.  The  first  is, 
when  nearly  the  whole  of  the  population  enjoy  the  advantages  of 


300 


TREES. 


education,  as  in  New  England.  The  second  is,  when  a  few  of  the 
more  spirited  and  intelligent  of  the  citizens  move  the  rest  by  taking 
the  burden  in  the  beginning  upon  their  own  shoulders  by  setting  the 
example  themselves,  and  by  most  zealously  urging  all  others  to  follow. 

The  villages  of  New  England,  looking  at  then-  sylvan  charms, 
are  as  beautiful  as  any  in  the  world.  Their  architecture  is  simple 
and  unpretending — often,  indeed,  meagre  and  unworthy  of  notice. 
The  houses  are  surrounded  by  inclosures  full  of  trees  and  shrubs, 
with  space  enough  to  afford  comfort,  and  ornament  enough  to  de- 
note taste.  But  the  mam  street  of  the  village  is  an  avenue  of  elms, 
positively  delightful  to  behold.  Always  wide,  the  overarching 
boughs  form  an  aisle  more  grand  and  beautiful  than  that  of  any  old 
Gothic  cathedral.  Not  content,  indeed,  with  one  avenue,  some  of 
these  villages  have,  in  their  wide,  single  street,  three  lines  of  trees, 
forming  a  double  avenue,  of  which  any  grand  old  palace  abroad 
might  well  be  proud.  "Would  that  those  of  our  readers,  whose  souls 
are  callous  to  the  charms  of  the  lights  and  shadows  that  bedeck 
these  bewitching  rural  towns  and  villages,  would  forthwith  set  out 
out  on  a  pilgrimage  to  such  places  as  Northampton,  Springfield, 
New  Haven,  Pittsfield,  Stockbridge,  Woodbury,  and  the  like. 

When  we  contrast  with  these  lovely  resting  places  for  the  eye, 
embowered  with  avenues  of  elms,  gracefully  drooping  like  fountains 
of  falling  water,  or  sugar-maples  swelling  and  towering  up  like  finely 
formed  antique  vases — some  of  the  uncared  for  towns  and  villages 
in  our  own  State,  we  are  almost  forced  to  believe  that  the  famous 
common  schools  of  New  England  teach  the  aesthetics  of  art,  and 
that  the  beauty  of  shade-trees  is  the  care  of  especial  professorships. 
Homer  and  Virgil,  Cicero,  Manlius,  and  Tully,  shades  of  the  great 
Greeks  and  Romans  ! — our  citizens  have  named  towns  after  you,  but 
the  places  that  bear  your  names  scarcely  hold  leafy  trees  enough  to 
renew  the  fading  laurels  round  your  heads  ! — while  the  direct  de- 
scendants of  stern  Puritans,  who  had  a  holy  horror  of  things  ornamen- 
tal, who  cropped  their  hair,  and  made  penalties  for  indulgences  in  fine 
linen,  live  in  villages  overshadowed  by  the  very  spirit  of  rural  elegance ! 

It  is  neither  from  a  want  of  means,  or  want  of  time,  or  any  ig- 
norance of  what  is  essential  to  the  beauty  of  body  or  of  mind,  that 
we  see  this  neglect  of  the  public  becomingness.    There  are  numbers 


ON  PLANTING  SHADE-TREES. 


301 


of  houses  in  all  these  villages,  that  boast  their  pianos,  while  the  last 
Paris  fashions  are  worn  in  the  parlors,  and  the  freshest  periodical 
literature  of  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic  fills  the  centre-tables.  But 
while  the  comfort  and  good  looks  of  the  individual  are  sufficiently 
cared  for,  the  comfort  and  good  looks  of  the  town  are  sadly  neg- 
lected. Our  education  here  stops  short  of  New  England.  We  are 
slow  to  feel  that  the  character  of  the  inhabitants  is  always,  in  some 
degree,  indicated  by  the  appearance  of  the  town.  It  is,  unluckily, 
no  one's  especial  business  to  ornament  the  streets.  No  one  feels  it 
a  reproach  to  himself,  that  verdure  and  beauty  do  not  hang  like  rich 
curtains  over  the  street  in  which  he  lives.  And  thus  a  whole  village 
or  town  goes  on  from  year  to  year,  in  a  shameless  state  of  public 
nudity  and  neglect,  because  no  one  feels  it  his  particular  duty  to 
persuade  his  neighbors  to  join  him  in  making  the  town  in  which  he 
lives  a  gem  of  rural  beauty,  instead  of  a  sorry  collection  of  unin- 
teresting houses. 

It  is  the  frequent  apology  of  intelligent  persons  who  live  in  such 
places,  and  are  more  alive  to  this  glaring  defect  than  the  majority, 
that  it  is  impossible  for  them  to  do  any  thing  alone,  and  their  neigh- 
bors care  nothing  about  it. 

One  of  the  finest  refutations  of  this  kind  of  delusion  exists  in 
New  Haven.  All  over  the  Union,  this  town  is  known  as  the  "  City 
of  Elms."  The  stranger  always  pauses,  and  bears  tribute  to  the 
taste  of  its  inhabitants,  while  he  walks  beneath  the  grateful  shade 
of  its  lofty  rows  of  trees.  Yet  a  large  part  of  the  finest  of  these 
trees  were  planted,  and  the  whole  of  the  spirit  which  they  have  in- 
spired, was  awakened  by  one  person — Mr.  Hillhouse.  He  lived 
long  enough  to  see  fair  and  lofty  aisles  of  verdure,  where,  before, 
were  only  rows  of  brick  or  wooden  houses  ;  and,  we  doubt  not,  he 
enjoyed  a  purer  satisfaction  than  many  great  conquerors  who  have 
died  with  the  honors  of  capturing  kingdoms,  and  demolishing  a 
hundred  cities. 

Let  no  person,  therefore,  delay  planting  shade-trees  himself, 
or  persuading  his  neighbors  to  do  the  same.  Wherever  a  village 
contains  half  a  dozen  persons  zealous  in  this  excellent  work  of 
adorning  the  country  at  large,  let  them  form  a  society  and  make 
proselytes  of  those  who  are  slow  to  be  moved  otherwise.    A  public 


302 


TREES. 


spirited  man  in  Boston  does  a  great  service  to  the  community,  and 
earns  the  thanks  of  his  countrymen,  by  giving  fifty  thousand  dollars 
to  endow  a  professorship  in  a  college  ;  let  the  public  spirited  man 
of  the  more  humble  village  in  the  interior,  also  establish  his  claim 
to  public  gratitude,  by  planting  fifty  trees  annually,  along  its  public 
streets,  in  quarters  where  there  is  the  least  ability  or  the  least  taste 
to  be  awakened  in  this  way,  or  where  the  poverty  of  the  houses 
most  needs  something  to  hide  them,  and  give  an  aspect  of  shelter 
and  beauty.  Hundreds  of  public  meetings  are  called,  on  subjects 
not  half  so  important  to  the  welfare  of  the  place  as  this,  whose 
object  would  be  to  direct  the  attention  of  all  the  householders  to 
the  nakedness  of  their  estates,  in  the  eyes  of  those  who  most  love 
our  country,  and  would  see  her  rural  towns  and  village  homes  made 
as  attractive  and  pleasant  as  they  are  free  and  prosperous. 

We  pointed  out,  in  a  former  article,  the  principle  that  should 
guide  those  who  are  about  to  select  trees  for  streets  of  rural  towns 
— that  of  choosing  that  tree  which  the  soil  of  the  place  will  bring 
to  the  highest  perfection.  There  are  two  trees,  however,  which  are 
so  eminently  adapted  to  this  purpose  in  the  Northern  States,  that 
they  may  be  universally  employed.  These  are  the  American  weeping 
elm  and  the  silver  maple.  They  have,  to  recommend  them,  in  the  first 
place,  great  rapidity  of  growth ;  in  the  second  place,  the  graceful 
forms  which  they  assume ;  in  the  third  place,  abundance  of  fine 
foliage ;  and  lastly,  the  capacity  of  adapting  themselves  to  almost 
every  soil  where  trees  will  thrive  at  all. 

These  two  trees  have  broad  and  spreading  heads,  fit  for  wide 
streets  and  avenues.  That  fine  tree,  the  Dutch  elm,  of  exceedingly 
rapid  growth  and  thick  dark-green  foliage,  makes  a  narrower  and 
more  upright  head  than  our  native  sort,  and,  as  well  as  the  sugar 
maple,  may  be  planted  in  streets  and  avenues,  where  there  is  but 
little  room  for  the  expansion  of  wide  spreading  tops. 

No  town,  where  any  of  these  trees  are  extensively  planted,  can 
be  otherwise  than  agreeable  to  the  eye,  whatever  may  be  its  situa- 
tion, or  the  style  of  its  dwellings.  To  villages  prettily  built,  they 
will  give  a  character  of  positive  beauty,  that  will  both  add  to  the 
value  of  property,  and  increase  the  comfort  and  patriotism  of  the 
inhabitants. 


IV. 

TREES  IN  TOWNS  AND  VILLAGES. 

March,  1847. 

"  rpHE  man  who  loves  not  trees,  to  look  at  them,  to  lie  under 
JL  them,  to  climb  up  them  (once  more  a  schoolboy,)  would 
make  no  bones  of  murdering  Mrs.  Jeffs.  In  what  one  imaginable 
attribute,  that  it  ought  to  possess,  is  a  tree,  pray,  deficient?  Light, 
shade,  shelter,  coolness,  freshness,  music, — all  the  colors  of  the  rain- 
bow, dew  and  dreams  dropping  through  their  soft  twilight,  at  eve 
and  morn, — dropping  direct,  soft,  sweet,  soothing,  restorative  from 
heaven.  Without  trees,  how,  in  the  name  of  wonder,  could  we 
have  had  houses,  ships,  bridges,  easy  chairs,  or  coffins,  or  almost 
any  single  one  of  the  necessaries,  comforts,  or  conveniences  of  life  ? 
Without  trees,  one  man  might  have  been  born  with  a  silver  spoon 
in  his  mouth,  but  not  another  with  a  wooden  ladle." 

Every  man,  who  has  in  his  nature  a  spark  of  sympathy  with 
the  good  and  beautiful,  must  involuntarily  respond  to  this  rhapsody 
of  Christopher  North's,  in  behalf  of  trees — the  noblest  and  proudest 
drapery  that  sets  off  the  figure  of  our  fair  planet.  Every  man's  bet- 
ter sentiments  would  involuntarily  lead  him  to  cherish,  respect,  and 
admire  trees.  And  no  one  who  has  sense  enough  rightly  to  under- 
stand the  wonderful  system  of  life,  order,  and  harmony,  that  is  in- 
volved in  one  of  our  grand  and  majestic  forest-trees,  could  ever  de- 
stroy it,  unnecessarily,  without  a  painful  feeling,  we  should  say,  akin 
at  least  to  murder  in  the  fourth  degree. 

Yet  it  must  be  confessed,  that  it  is  surprising,  when,  from  the 
force  of  circumstances,  what  the  phrenologists  call  the  principle  of 


304 


TREES. 


destructiveness,  gets  excited,  how  sadly  men's  bettor  feelings  are 
warped  and  smothered.  Thus,  old  soldiers  sweep  away  ranks  of 
men  with  as  little  compunction  as  the  mower  swings  his  harmless 
scythe  in  a  meadow ;  and  settlers,  pioneers,  and  squatters,  girdle 
and  make  a  clearing,  in  a  centennial  forest,  perhaps  one  of  the 
grandest  that  ever  God  planted,  with  no  more  remorse  than  we  have 
in  brushing  away  dusty  cobwebs.  We  are  not  now  about  to  de- 
claim against  war,  as  a  member  of  the  peace  society,  or  against  plant- 
ing colonies  and  extending  the  human  family,  as  would  a  disciple 
of  Dr.  Malthus.  These  are  probably  both  wise  means  of  progress, 
in  the  hands  of  the  Great  Worker. 

But  it  is  properly  our  business  to  bring  men  back  to  their  bet- 
ter feelings,  when  the  fever  of  destruction  is  over.  If  our  ancestors 
found  it  wise  and  necessary  to  cut  down  vast  forests,  it  is  all  the 
more  needful  that  their  descendants  should  plant  trees.  We  shall 
do  our  part,  therefore,  towards  awakening  again,  that  natural  love  of 
trees,  which  this  long  warfare  against  them — this  continual  laying 
the  axe  at  their  roots — so  common  in  a  new  country,  has,  in  so 
many  places,  well  nigh  extinguished.  We  ought  not  to  cease,  till 
every  man  feels  it  to  be  one  of  his  moral  duties  to  become  a  planter 
of  trees  ;  until  every  one  feels,  indeed,  that,  if  it  is  the  most  patriotic 
tfiing  that  can  be  done  to  make  the  earth  yield  two  blades  of  grass 
instead  of  one,  it  is  far  more  so  to  cause  trees  to  grow  where  no 
foliage  has  waved  and  fluttered  before — trees,  which  are  not  only 
full  of  usefulness  and  beauty  always,  but  to  which  old  Time  himself 
grants  longer  leases  than  he  does  to  ourselves ;  so  that  he  who  plants 
them  wisely,  is  more  certain  of  receiving  the  thanks  of  posterity, 
than  the  most  persuasive  orator,  or  the  most  prolific  writer  of  his 
day  and  generation. 

The  especial  theme  of  our  lamentation  touching  trees  at  the  pre- 
sent moment,  is  the  general  neglect  and  inattention  to  their  many 
charms,  in  country  towns  and  villages.  We  say  general,  for  our 
mind  dwells  with  unfeigned  ielight  upon  exceptions — many  beautiful 
towns  and  villages  in  New  England,  where  the  verdure  of  the  loveliest 
elms  waves  like  grand  lines  of  giant  and  graceful  plumes  above  the 
house  tops,  giving  an  air  of  rural  beauty,  that  speaks  louder  for  the 
good  habits  of  the  inhabitants,  than  the  pleasant  sound  of  a  hun- 


TREES  IN  TOWNS  AND  VILLAGES. 


305 


dred  church  bells.  We  remember  Northampton,  Springfield,  New 
Haven,  Stockbridge,  and  others,  whose  long  and  pleasant  avenues 
are  refreshing  and  beautiful  to  look  upon.  We  do  not  forget  that 
large  and  sylan  park,  with  undulating  surface,  the  Boston  Common, 
or  that  really  admirable  city  arboretum  of  rare  trees,  Washington 
Square  of  Philadelphia.*  Their  groves  are  as  beloved  and  sacred 
in  our  eyes,  as  those  of  the  Deo-dar  are  to  the  devout  Brahmins. 

But  these  are,  we  are  sorry  to  be  obliged  to  say,  only  the  ex- 
ceptions to  the  average  condition  of  our  country  towns.  As  an  off- 
set to  them,  how  many  towns,  how  many  villages,  could  we  name, 
where  rude  and  uncouth  streets  bask  in  the  summer  heat,  and  revel 
in  the  noontide  glare,  with  scarcely  a  leaf  to  shelter  or  break  the 
painful  monotony  !  Towns  and  villages,  where  there  is  no  lack  of 
trade,  no  apparent  want  of  means,  where  houses  are  yearly  built, 
and  children  weekly  born,  but  where  you  might  imagine,  from  their 
barrenness,  that  the  soil  had  been  cursed,  and  it  refused  to  support 
tbe  life  of  a  single  tree. 

What  must  be  done  in  such  cases  ?  There  must  be  at  least  one 
right-feeling  man  in  every  such  Sodom.  Let  him  set  vigorously  at 
work,  and  if  he  cannot  induce  his  neighbors  to  join  him,  he  must 
not  be  disheartened — let  him  plant  and  cherish  carefully  a  few 
trees,  if  only  half  a  dozen.  They  must  be  such  as  will  grow  vigor- 
ously, and  like  the  native  elm,  soon  make  themselves  felt  and  seen 
wherever  they  may  be  placed.  In  a  very  few  years  they  will  preach 
more  eloquent  orations  than  "  gray  goose  quills"  can  write.  Their 
luxuriant  leafy  arms,  swaying  and  waving  to  and  fro,  will  make 
more  convincing  gestures  than  any  member  of  congress  or  stump 
speaker ;  and  if  there  is  any  love  of  nature  dormant  in  the  dusty 
hearts  of  the  villagers,  we  prophesy  that  in  a  very  short  time  there 
will  be  such  a  general  yearning  after  green  trees,  that  the  whole 
place  will  become  a  bower  of  freshness  and  verdure. 

In  some  parts  of  Germany,  the  government  makes  it  a  duty  for 
every  landholder  to  plant  trees  in  the  highways,  before  his  property ; 
and  in  a  few  towns  that  we  have  heard  of,  no  young  bachelor  can 

*  Which  probably  contains  more  well  grown  specimens  of  different  spe- 
cies of  forest-trees,  than  any  similar  space  of  ground  in  America. 


306 


TREES. 


take  a  wife  till  he  has  planted  a  tree.  We  have  not  a  word  to  say 
against  either  of  these  regulations.  But  Americans,  it  must  be  con- 
fessed, do  not  like  to  be  over-governed,  or  compelled  into  doing  even 
beautiful  things.  We  therefore  recommend,  as  an  example  to  ali 
country  towns,  that  most  praiseworthy  and  successful  mode  of  achiev- 
ing this  result  adopted  by  the  citizens  of  Northampton,  Massachu- 
setts. 

This,  as  Ave  learn,  is  no  less  than  an  Ornamental  Tree  Society. 
An  association,  whose  business  and  pleasure  it  is  to  turn  dusty  lanes 
and  bald  highways  into  alleys  and  avenues  of  coolness  and  verdure. 
Making  a  "  wilderness  blossom  like  the  rose,"  is  scarcely  more  of  a 
rural  miracle  than  may  be  wrought  by  this  simple  means.  It  is 
quite  incredible  how  much  spirit  such  a  society,  composed  at  first 
of  a  few  really  zealous  arboriculturists,  may  beget  in  a  country 
neighborhood.  Some  men  there  are,  in  eveiy  such  place,  who  are 
too  much  occupied  with  what  they  consider  more  important  mat- 
ters, ever  to  plant  a  single  tree,  unsolicited.  But  these  are  readily 
acted  upon  by  a  society,  who  work  for  "the  public  good,"  and  who 
move  an  individual  of  this  kind  much  as  a  town  meeting  moves 
him,  by  the  greater  weight  of  numbers.  Others  there  are,  who  can 
only  be  led  into  tasteful  improvement,  by  the  principle  of  imitation, 
and  who  consequently  will  not  begin  to  plant  trees,  till  it  is  the  fash- 
ion to  do  so.  And  again,  others  who  grudge  the  trifling  cost  of 
putting  out  a  shade-tree,  but  who  will  be  shamed  into  it  by  the  ex- 
ample of  every  neighbor  around  them — neighbors  who  have  been 
stimulated  into  action  by  the  zeal  of  the  society.  And  last  of  all,  as 
we  have  learned,  there  is  here  and  there  an  instance  of  some  slovenly 
and  dogged  farmer,  who  positively  refuses  to  take  the  trouble  to 
plant  a  single  twig  by  the  road-side.  Such  an  individual,  the  soci- 
ety commiserate,  and  beg  him  to  let  them  plant  the  trees  in  front 
of  his  estate  at  their  own  cost ! 

In  this  way,  little  by  little,  the  Ornamental  Tree  Society  accom- 
plishes its  ends.  In  a  few  years  it  has  the  satisfaction  of  seeing  its 
village  the  pride  of  the  citizens — for  even  those  who  were  the  most 
tardy  to  catch  the  planting  fever,  are  at  last — such  is  the  silent  and 
irresistible  influence  of  sylvan  beauty — the  loudest  champions  of 
green  trees — and  the  delight  of  all  travellers,  who  treasure  it  up  in 


TREES  IN  TOWNS  AND  VILLAGES. 


307 


their  hearts,  as  one  does  a  picture  drawn  by  poets,  and  colored  by 
the  light  of  some  divine  genius. 

We  heartily  commend,  therefore,  this  plan  of  Social  Planting 
Reform,  to  every  desolate,  leafless,  and  repulsive  town  and  village  in 
the  country.  There  can  scarcely  be  one,  where  there  are  not  three 
persons  of  taste  and  spirit  enough  to  organize  such  a  society ;  and 
once  fairly  in  operation,  its  members  will  never  cease  to  congratulate 
themselves  on  the  beauty  and  comfort  they  have  produced.  Every 
tree  which  they  plant,  and  which  grows  up  in  after  years  into  a 
giant  trunk  and  grand  canopy  of  foliage,  will  be  a  better  monument 
(though  it  may  bear  no  lying  inscription)  than  many  an  unmeaning 
obelisk  of  marble  or  granite. 

Let  us  add  a  few  words  respecting  the  best  trees  for  adorning 
the  streets  of  rural  towns  and  villages.  "With  the  great  number  and 
variety  of  fine  trees  which  flourish  in  this  country,  there  is  abundant 
reason  for  asking,  "where  shall  we  choose?"  And  although  we 
must  not  allow  ourselves  space  at  this  moment,  to  dwell  upon  the 
subject  in  detail,  we  may  venture  two  or  three  hints  about  it. 

Nothing  appears  to  be  so  captivating  to  the  mass  of  human 
beings,  as  novelty.  And  there  is  a  fashion  in  trees,  which  sometimes 
has  a  sway  no  less  rigorous  than  that  of  a  Parisian  modiste.  Hence, 
while  we  have  the  finest  indigenous,  ornamental  trees  in  the  world, 
growing  in  our  native  forests,  it  is  not  an  unusual  thing  to  see  them 
blindly  overlooked  for  foreign  species,  that  have  not  half  the  real 
charms,  and  not  a  tenth  part  of  the  adaptation  to  our  soil  and 
climate. 

Thirty  years  ago,  there  was  a  general  Lombardy  poplar  epidemic. 
This  tall  and  formal  tree,  striking  and  admirable  enough,  if  very 
sparingly  introduced  in  landscape  planting,  is,  of  all  others,  most 
abominable,  in  its  serried  stiffness  and  monotony,  when  planted  in 
avenues,  or  straight  lines.  Yet  nine-tenths  of  all  the  ornamental 
planting  of  that  period,  was  made  up  of  this  now  decrepit  and  con- 
demned tree. 

So  too,  we  recall  one  or  two  of  our  villages,  where  the  soil  would 
have  produced  any  of  our  finest  forest  trees,  yet  where  the  only  trees 
thought  worthy  of  attention  by  the  inhabitants,  are  the  ailanthus 
and  the  paper  mulberry 


308 


TREES. 


The  principle  which  would  govern  us,  if  we  were  planting  the 
streets  of  rural  towns,  is  this :  Select  the  finest  indigenous  tree  or 
trees  ;  such  as  the  soil  and  climate  of  the  place  will  bring  to  the 
highest  perfection.  Thus,  if  it  were  a  neighborhood  where  the  elm 
flourished  peculiarly  well,  or  the  maple,  or  the  beech,  we  would 
directly  adopt  the  tree  indicated.  We  would  then,  in  time,  succeed 
in  producing  the  finest  possible  specimens  of  the  species  selected : 
while,  if  we  adopted,  for  the  sake  of  fashion  or  novelty,  a  foreign 
tree,  we  should  probably  only  succeed  in  getting  poor  and  meagre 
specimens. 

It  is  because  this  principle  has  been,  perhaps  accidentally,  pur- 
sued, that  the  villages  of  New  England  are  so  celebrated  for  their 
sylvan  charms.  The  elm  is,  we  think,  nowhere  seen  in  more  ma- 
jesty, greater  luxuriance,  or  richer  beauty,  than  in  the  valley  of  the 
Connecticut ;  and  it  is  because  the  soil  is  so  truly  congenial  to  it, 
that  the  elm-adorned  streets  of  the  villages  there,  elicit  so  much  ad- 
miration. They  are  not  only  well  planted  with  trees — but  with  a 
kind  of  tree  which  attains  its  greatest  perfection  there.  Who  can 
forget  the  fine  lines  of  the  sugar-maple,  in  Stockbridge,  Massachu- 
setts ?  They  are  in  our  eyes  the  rural  glory  of  the  place.  The  soil 
there  is  then*  own,  and  they  have  attained  a  beautiful  symmetry 
and  development.  Yet  if,  instead  of  maples,  poplars  or  willows 
had  been  planted,  how  marked  would  have  been  the  difference  of 
effect. 

There  are  no  grander  or  more  superb  trees,  than  our  American 
oaks.  Those  who  know  them  only  as  they  grow  in  the  midst,  or 
on  the  skirts  of  a  thick  forest,  have  no  proper  notion  of  then-  dignity 
and  beauty,  when  planted  and  grown  in  an  avenue,  or  where  they 
have  full  space  to  develop.  Now,  there  are  many  districts  where 
the  native  luxuriance  of  the  oak  woods,  points  out  the  perfect  adap- 
tation of  the  soil  for  this  tree.  If  we  mistake  not,  such  is  the  case 
where  that  charming  rural  town  in  this  State,  Canandaigua,  stands. 
Yet,  we  confess  we  were  not  a  little  pained,  in  walking  through  the 
streets  of  Canandaigua,  the  past  season,  to  find  them  mainly  lined 
with  that  comparatively  meagre  tree,  the  locust.  How  much  finer 
and  more  imposing,  for  the  long  principal  street  of  Canandaigua, 


TREES  IN  TOWNS  AND  VILLAGES. 


309 


would  be  an  avenue  of  our  finest  and  hardiest  native  oaks — rich  in 
foliage  and  grand  in  every  part  of  their  trunks  and  branches.* 

Though  we  think  our  native  weeping  elm,  or  sugar  maple,  and 
two  or  three  of  our  oaks,  the  finest  of  street  trees  for  country  villages, 
yet  there  are  a  great  many  others  which  may  be  adopted,  when  the 
soil  is  their  own,  with  the  happiest  effect.  "What  could  well  be 
more  beautiful,  for  example,  for  a  village  with  a  deep,  mellow  soil, 
than  a  long  avenue  of  that  tall  and  most  elegant  tree,  the  tulip-tree 
or  whitewood  ?  For  a  village  in  a  mountainous  district,  like  New 
Lebanon,  in  this  State,  we  would  perhaps  choose  the  white  pine, 
which  would  produce  a  grand  and  striking  effect.  In  Ohio,  the 
cucumber-tree  would  make  one  of  the  noblest  and  most  admirable 
avenues,  and  at  the  south  what  could  be  conceived  more  captivating 
than  a  village  whose  streets  were  lined  with  rows  of  the  magnolia 
grandifiora  ?  We  know  how  little  common  minds  appreciate  these 
natural  treasures ;  how  much  the  less  because  they  are  common  in 
the  woods  about  them.  Still,  such  are  the  trees  which  should  be 
planted  ;  for  fine  forest  trees  are  fast  disappearing,  and  planted  trees, 
grown  in  a  soil  fully  congenial  to  them,  will,  as  we  have  already 
said,  assume  a  character  of  beauty  and  grandeur  that  will  arrest  the 
attention  and  elicit  the  admiration  of  every  traveller. 

The  variety  of  trees  for  cities — densely  crowded  cities — is  but 
small;  and  this,  chiefly,  because  the  warm  brick  walls  are  such 
hiding-places  and  nurseries  for  insects,  that  many  fine  trees — fine  for 
the  country  and  for  rural  towns — become  absolute  pests  in  the  cities. 
Thus,  in  Philadelphia,  we  have  seen,  with  regret,  whole  rows  of  the 
European  linden  cut  down  within  the  last  ten  years,  because  this 
tree,  in  cities,  is  so  infested  with  odious  worms,  that  it  often  becomes 
unendurable.  On  this  account  that  foreign  tree,  the  ailanthus,  the 
strong  scented  foliage  of  which  no  insect  will  attack,  is  every  day 
becoming  a  greater  metropolitan  favorite.  The  maples  are  among 
the  thriftiest  and  most  acceptable  trees  for  large  cities,  and  no  one 
of  them  is  more  vigorous,  cleaner,  hardier,  or  more  graceful  than  the 
silver  maple  (Acer  eriocarpum). 

*  The  oak  is  easily  transplanted  from  the  nurseries— though  not  from 
the  woods,  unless  in  the  latter  case,  it  has  been  prepared  a  year  beforehand 
by  shortening  the  roots  and  branches. 


310 


TREES. 


We  must  defer  any  further  remarks  for  the  present ;  but  we  must 
add,  in  conclusion,  that  the  planting  season  is  at  hand.  Let  every 
man,  whose  soul  is  not  a  desert,  plant  trees ;  and  that  not  alone  for 
himself — within  the  hounds  of  his  own  demesne,  but  in  the  streets, 
and  along  the  rural  highways  of  his  neighborhood.  Thus  he  will 
not  only  lend  grace  and  beauty  to  the  neighborhood  and  county  in 
which  he  lives,  but  earn,  honestly  and  well,  the  thanks  of  his  fellow- 
men. 


;  v. 

SHADE-TEEES  IN  CITIES.  , 

August,  1852. 

"  "P\OWN  w^  ailanthus  ! "  is  the  cry  we  hear  on  all  sides, 
±J  town  and  country,  —  now  that  this  "  tree  of  heaven  "  (as 
the  catalogues  used  alluringly  to  call  it)  has  penetrated  all  parts  of 
the  Union,  and  begins  to  show  its  true  character.  Down  with  the 
ailanthus !  "  Its  blossoms  smell  so  disagreeably  that  my  family  are 
made  ill  by  it,"  says  an  oil  resident  on  one  of  the  squares  in  New- 
York,  where  it  is  the  only  shade  for  fifty  contiguous  houses.  "  We 
must  positively  go  to  Newport,  papa,  to  escape  these  horrible  ailan- 
thuses,"  exclaim  numberless  young  ladies,  who  find  that  even  their 
best  Jean  Maria  Farina,  affords  no  permanent  relief,  since  their 
front  parlors  have  become  so  celestially  embowered.  "  The  vile  tree 
comes  up  all  over  my  garden,"  say  fifty  owners  of  suburban  lots  who 
have  foolishly  been  tempted  into  bordering  the  outside  of  their 
"  yards  "  with  it — having  been  told  that  it  grows  so  "  surprising  fast." 
"It  has  ruined  my  lawn  for  fifty  feet  all  round  each  tree,"  say  the 
country  gentlemen,  who,  seduced  by  the  oriental  beauty  of  its  foli- 
age, have  also  been  busy  for  years  dotting  it  in  open  places,  here 
and  there,  in  their  pleasure-grounds.  In  some  of  the  cities  south- 
ward, the  authorities,  taking  the  matter  more  seriously,  have  voted 
the  entire  downfall  of  the  whole  species,  and  the  Herods  who  wield 
the  besom  of  sylvan  destruction,  have  probably  made  a  clean  sweep 
of  the  first  born  of  celestials,  in  more  towns  than  one  south  of  Mason 
and  Dixon's  line  this  season. 

Although  we  think  there  is  picturesqueness  in  the  free  and  luxu- 


312 


TKEES. 


riant  foliage  of  the  ailanthus,  we  shall  see  its  downfall  without  a 
word  to  save  it.  We  look  upon  it  as  an  usurper  in  rather  bad  odor 
at  home,  which  has  come  over  to  this  land  of  liberty,  under  the 
garb  of  utility,*  to  make  foul  the  air,  with  its  pestilent  breath,  and 
devour  the  soil,  with  its  intermeddling  roots — a  tree  that  has  the 
fair  outside  and  the  treacherous  heart  of  the  Asiatics,  and  that  has 
played  us  so  many  tricks,  that  we  find  we  have  caught  a  Tartar 
which  it  requires  something  more  than  a  Chinese  wall  to  confine 
within  limits. 

Down  with  the  ailanthus  !  therefore,  we  cry  with  the  populace. 
But  we  have  reasons  beside  theirs,  and  now  that  the  favorite  has 
fallen  out  of  favor  with  the  sovereigns,  we  may  take  the  opportunity 
to  preach  a  funeral  sermon  over  its  remains,  that  shall  not,  like  so 
many  funeral  sermons,  be  a  bath  of  oblivion-waters  to  wash  out  all 
memory  of  its  vices.  For  if  the  Tartar  is  not  laid  violent  hands 
upon,  and  kept  under  close  watch,  even  after  the  spirit  has  gone  out 
of  the  old  trunk,  and  the  coroner  is  satisfied  that  he  has  come  to  a 
violent  end — lo,  we  shall  have  him  upon  us  tenfold  in  the  shape  of 
suckers  innumerable — little  Tartars  that  will  beget  a  new  dynasty, 
and  overrun  our  grounds  and  gardens  again,  without  mercy. 

The  vices  of  the  ailanthus — the  incurable  vices  of  the  by-gone 
favorite — then,  are  twofold.  In  the  first  place,  it  smells  horribly, 
both  in  leaf  and  flower — and  instead  of  sweetening  and  purifying 
the  air,  fills  it  with  a  heavy,  sickening  odor ;  f  in  the  second  place, 
it  suckers  abominably,  and  thereby  overruns,  appropriates,  and  re- 
duces to  beggary,  all  the  soil  of  eveiy  open  piece  of  ground  where 
it  is  planted.  These  are  the  mortifications  which  every  body  feels 
sooner  or  later,  who  has  been  seduced  by  the  luxuriant  outstretched 
welcome  of  its  smooth  round  arms,  and  the  waving  and  beckoning 
of  its  graceful  plumes,  into  giving  it  a  place  in  then-  home  circle. 
For  a  few  years,  while  the  tree  is  growing,  it  has,  to  be  sure,  a  fair 

*  The  ailanthus,  though  originally  from  China,  was  first  introduced  into 
this  country  from  Europe,  as  the  "Tanner's  sumac" — but  the  mistake  -was 
soon  discovered,  and  its  rapid  growth  made  it  a  favorite  with  planters. 

f  Two  acquaintances  of  ours,  in  a  house  in  the  upper  part  of  the  city 
of  New- York,  are  regularly  driven  out  by  the  ailanthus  malaria  every 
season. 


SHADE-TREES  IN  CITIES. 


313 


and  specious  look.  You  feel  almost,  as  you  look  at  its  round  trunk 
shooting  up  as  straight,  and  almost  as  fast  as  a  rocket,  crowned  by 
such  a  luxuriant  tuft  of  verdure,  that  you  have  got  a  young  palm- 
tree  before  your  door,  that  can  whisper  tales  to  you  in  the  evening 
of  that  "  Flowery  Country  "  from  whence  you  have  borrowed  it,  and 
you  swear  to  stand  by  it  against  all  slanderous  aspersions.  But 
alas !  you  are  greener  in  your  experience  than  the  Tartar  in  his 
leaves.  A  few  years  pass  by ;  the  sapling  becomes  a  tree — its  blos- 
soms fill  the  air  with  something  that  looks  like  curry-powder,  and 
smells  like  the  plague.  You  shut  down  the  windows  to  keep  out 
the  unbalmy  June  air,  if  you  live  in  town,  and  invariably  give  a 
wide  berth  to  the  heavenly  avenue,  if  you  belong  to  the  country. 

But  we  confess  openly,  that  our  crowning  objection  to  this  petted 
Chinaman  or  Tartar,  who  has  played  us  so  falsely,  is  a  patriotic  ob- 
jection. It  is  that  he  has  drawn  away  our  attention  from  our  own 
more  noble  native  American  trees,  to  waste  it  on  this  miserable  pig- 
tail of  an  Indiaman.  What  should  we  think  of  the  Italians,  if  they 
should  forswear  their  own  orange-trees  and  figs,  pomegranates  and 
citrons,  and  plant  their  streets  and  gardens  with  the  poison  sumac- 
tree  of  our  swamps  ?  And  what  must  a  European  arboriculturist 
think,  who  travels  in  America,  delighted  and  astonished  at  the 
beauty  of  our  varied  and  exhaustless  forests — the  richest  in  the 
temperate  zone,  to  see  that  we  neither  value  nor  plant  them,  but  fill 
our  lawns  and  avenues  with  the  cast-off  nuisances  of  the  gardens 
of  Asia  and  Europe  ? 

And  while  in  the  vein,  we  would  include  in  the  same  category 
another  less  fashionable,  but  still  much  petted  foreigner,  that  has 
settled  among  us  with  a  good  letter  of  credit,  but  who  deserves  not 
his  success.  We  mean  the  abele  or  silver  poplar.  There  is  a 
pleasant  flutter  in  his  silver-lined  leaves — but  when  the  timber  is  a 
foot  thick,  you  shall  find  the  air  unpleasantly  filled,  every  spring, 
with  the  fine  white  down  which  flies  from  the  blossom,  while  the 
suckers  which  are  thrown  up  from  the  roots  of  old  abeles  are  a  pest 
to  all  grounds  and  gardens,  even  worse  than  those  of  the  ailanthus. 
Down  with  the  abeles  ! 

Oh  !  that  our  tree-planters,  and  they  are  an  army  of  hundreds 
of  thousands  in  this  country — ever  increasing  with  the  growth  of 


314 


TREES. 


good  taste — oh  !  that  they  knew  and  could  understand  the  surpatw 
ing  beauty  of  our  native  shade-trees.  More  than  forty  species  of  oak 
are  there  in  North  America  (Great  Britain  has  only  two  species — 
France  only  five),  and  we  are  richer  in  maples,  elms,  and  ashes, 
than  any  country  in  the  old  world.  Tulip-trees  and  magnolias  from 
America,  are  the  exotic  glories  of  the  princely  grounds  of  Europe. 
But  (saving  always  the  praiseworthy  partiality  in  New  England  for 
our  elms  and  maples),  who  plants  an  American  tree — in  America  ? 
And  who,  on  the  contrary,  that  has  planted  shade-trees  at  all  in  the 
United  States,  for  the  last  fifteen  years,  has  not  planted  either  ailan- 
thuses  or  abele  poplars  ?  We  should  like  to  see  that  discreet,  sagacious 
individual,  who  has  escaped  the  national  ecstasy  for  foreign  suckers. 
If  he  can  be  found,  he  is  more  deserving  a  gold  medal  from  our 
horticultural  societies,  than  the  grower  of  the  most  mammoth 
pumpkin,  or  elephantine  beet,  that  will  garnish  the  cornucopia  of 
Pomona  for  1852. 

In  this  confession  of  our  sins  of  commission  in  planting  filthy 
suckers,  and  omission  in  not  planting  clean  natives — we  must  lay 
part  of  the  burden  at  the  door  of  the  nurserymen.  (It  has  been 
found  a  convenient  practice — this  shifting  the  responsibility — ever 
since  the  first  trouble  about  trees  in  the  Garden  of  Eden.) 

"  Well !  then,  if  the  nurserymen  will  raise  ailanthuses  and  abeles 
by  the  thousands,"  reply  the  planting  community,  "  and  telling  us 
nothing  about  pestilential  odors  and  suckers,  tell  us  a  great  deal 
about  '  rapid  growth,  immediate  effect — beauty  of  foliage — rare 
foreign  trees,'  and  the  like,  it  is  not  surprising  that  we  plant  what 
turn  out,  after  twenty  years'  trial,  to  be  nuisances  instead  of  embel- 
lishments. It  is  the  business  of  the  nurserymen  to  supply  planters 
with  the  best  trees.  If  they  supply  us  with  the  worst,  who  sins  the 
most,  the  buyer  or  the  seller  of  such  stuff  ?" 

Softly,  good  friends.  It  is  the  business  of  the  nurserymen  to 
make  a  profit  by  raising  trees.  If  you  will  pay  just  as  much  for  a 
poor  tree,  that  can  be  raised  in  two  years  from  a  sucker,  as  a  valua- 
ble tree  that  requires  four  or  five  years,  do  you  wonder  that  the  nur- 
serymen will  raise'  and  sell  you  ailanthuses  instead  of  oaks  ?  It  is 
the  business  (duty,  at  least)  of  the  planter,  to  know  what  he  is  about 
to  plant ;  and  though  there  are  many  honest  traders,  it  is  a  good 


SHADE-TREES  IN  CITIES. 


315 


maxim  that  the  Turks  have — "  Ask  no  one  in  the  bazaar  to  praise 
his  own  goods."  To  the  eyes  of  the  nurserymen  a  crop  of  ailan- 
thuses  and  abeles  is  "  a  pasture  in  the  valley  of  sweet  waters."  But 
go  to  an  old  homestead,  where  they  have  become  naturalized,  and 
you  will  find  that  there  is  a  bitter  aftertaste  about  the  experience  of 
the  unfortunate  possessor  of  these  sylvan  treasures  of  a  far-off 
country.* 

The  planting  intelligence  must  therefore  increase,  if  we  would 
fill  our  grounds  and  shade  our  streets  with  really  valuable,  ornamen- 
tal trees.  The  nurserymen  will  naturally  raise  what  is  in  demand, 
and  if  but  ten  customers  offer  in  five  years  for  the  overcup  oak, 
while  fifty  come  of  a  day  for  the  ailanthus,  the  latter  will  be  culti- 
vated as  a  matter  of  course. 

The  question  immediately  arises,  what  shall  we  use  instead  of 
the  condemned  trees  ?  What,  especially,  shall  we  use  in  the  streets 
of  cities?  Many — nay,  the  majority  of  shade-trees — clean  and 
beautiful  in  the  country — are  so  infested  with  worms  and  insects  in 
towns  as  to  be  worse  than  useless.  The  sycamore  has  failed,  the 
linden  is  devoured,  the  elm  is  preyed  upon  by  insects.  We  have 
rushed  into  the  arms  of  the  Tartar,  partly  out  of  fright,  to  escape 
the  armies  of  caterpillars  and  cankerworms  that  have  taken  posses- 
sion of  better  trees ! 

Take  refuge,  friends,  in  the  American  maples.  Clean,  sweet, 
cool,  and  umbrageous,  are  the  maples  ;  and,  much  vaunted  as  ailan- 
thuses  and  poplars  are,  for  their  lightning  growth,  take  our  word  for 
it,  that  it  is  only  a  good  go-off  at  the  start.  A  maple  at  twenty  years 
—or  even  at  ten,  if  the  soil  is  favorable,  will  be  much  the  finer  and 
larger  tree.  No  tree  transplants  more  readily — none  adapts  itself 
more  easily  to  the  soil,  than  the  maple.  For  light  soils,  and  the 
milder  parts  of  the  Union,  say  the  Middle  and  Western  States,  the 
silver  maple,  with  drooping  branches,  is  at  once  the  best  and  most 
graceful  of  street  trees.    For  the  North  and  East,  the  soft  maple  and 

*  We  may  as  well  add  for  the  benefit  of  the  novice,  the  advice  to  shun 
all  trees  that  are  universally  propagated  by  suckers.  It  is  a  worse  inherit- 
ance for  a  tree  than  drunkenness  for  a  child,  and  more  difficult  to  eradicate. 
Even  ailanthuses  and  poplars  from  seed  have  tolerably  respectable  habits 
as  regards  radical  things. 

6 


316 


TREES. 


the  sugar  maple.  If  any  one  wishes  to  know  the  glory  and  beauty 
of  the  sugar  maple  as  a  street  tree,  let  him  make  a  pilgrimage  to 
Stockbridge,  in  Massachusetts !  If  he  desires  to  study  the  silver 
maple,  there  is  no  better  school  than  Burlington,  New  Jersey. 
These  are  two  towns  almost  wholly  planted  with  these  American 
trees — of  the  sylvan  adomings  of  which  any  "  native  "  may  well  be 
proud.  The  inhabitants  neither  have  to  abandon  their  front  rooms 
from  "  the  smell,"  nor  lose  the  use  of  their  back  yards  by  "  the 
suckers."  And  whoever  plants  either  of  these  three  maples,  may 
feel  sure  that  he  is  earning  the  thanks  instead  of  the  reproaches  of 
posterity. 

The  most  beautiful  and  stately  of  all  trees  for  an  avenue — and 
especially  for  an  avenue  street  in  town — is  an  American  tree  that 
one  rarely  sees  planted  in  America* — never,  that  we  remember,  in 
any  public  street.  We  mean  the  tuliji-tree,  or  liriodendron.  What 
can  be  more  beautiful  than  its  trunk — finely  proportioned,  and 
smooth  as  a  Grecian  column  ?  What  more  artistic  than  its  leaf — 
cut  like  an  arabesque  in  a  Moorish  palace  ?  What  more  clean  and 
lustrous  than  its  tufts  of  foliage — dark-green,  and  rich  as  deepest 
emerald  ?  What  more  lily-like  and  specious  than  its  blossoms — 
golden  and  bronzcshaded  ?  and  what  fairer  and  more  queenly  than 
its  whole  figure — stately  and  regal  as  that  of  Zenobia  ?  For  a  park 
tree,  to  spread  on  every  side,  it  is  unrivalled,  growing  a  hundred  and 
thirty  feet  high,  and  spreading  into  the  finest  symmetry  of  outline.f 
For  a  street  tree,  its  columnar  stem,  beautiful  either  with  or  without 
branches — with  a  low  head  or  a  high  head — foliage  over  the  second 
story  or  under  it — is  precisely  what  is  most  needed.  A  very  spread- 
ing tree,  like  the  elm,  is  always  somewhat  out  of  place  in  town,  be- 
cause its  natural  habit  is  to  extend  itself  laterally.  A  tree  with  the 
habit  of  the  tulip,  lifts  itself  into  the  finest  pyramids  of  foliage,  ex- 
actly suited  to  the  usual  width  of  town  streets — and  thus  embel- 
lishes and  shades,  without  darkening  and  incumbering  them.  Be- 

*  Though  there  are  grand  avenues  of  it  in  the  royal  parks  of  Germany 
— raised  from  American  seed. 

f  At  "Wakefield,  the  fine  country-seat  of  the  Fisher  family,  near  Phila- 
delphia, are  several  tulip-trees  on  the  lawn,  over  one  hundred  feet  high, 
and  three  to  six  feet  in  diameter. 


SHADE-TREES  IN  CITIES. 


317 


sides  this,  the  foliage  of  the  tulip-tree  is  as  clean  and  fresh  at  all 
times  as  the  bonnet  of  a  fair  young  quakeress,  and  no  insect  mars 
the  purity  of  its  rich  foliage. 

We  know  very  well  that  the  tulip-tree  is  considered  difficult  to 
transplant.  It  is,  the  gardeners  will  tell  you,  much  easier  to  plant 
ailanthuses,  or,  if  you  prefer,  maples.  Exactly,  so  it  is  easier  to  walk 
than  to  dance — but  as  all  people  who  wish  to  be  graceful  in  their 
gait  learn  to  dance  (if  they  can  get  an  opportunity),  so  all  planters 
who  wish  a  peculiarly  elegant  tree,  will  learn  how  to  plant  the  lirio- 
dendron.  In  the  first  place  the  soil  must  be  light  and  rich — better 
than  is  at  all  necessary  for  the  maples — and  if  it  cannot  be  made 
light  and  rich,  then  the  planter  must  confine  himself  to  maples. 
Next,  the  tree  must  be  transplanted  just  about  the  time  of  com- 
mencing its  growth  in  the  spring,  and  the  roots  must  be  cut  as  little 
as  possible,  and  not  suffered  to  get  dry  till  replanted. 

There  is  one  point  which,  if  attended  to  as  it  is  in  nurseries 
abroad,  would  render  the  tulip-tree  as  easily  transplanted  as  a  maple 
or  a  poplar.  We  mean  the  practice  of  cutting  round  the  tree  every 
year  in  the  nursery  till  it  is  removed.  This  developes  a  ball  of 
fibres,  and  so  prepares  the  tree  for  the  removal  that  it  feels  no  shock 
at  all.*  Nurserymen  could  well  afford  to  grow  tulip-trees  to  the 
size  suitable  for  street  planting,  and  have  them  twice  cut  or  removed 
beforehand,  so  as  to  enable  them  to  warrant  their  growth  in  any 
good  soil,  for  a  dollar  apiece.  (And  we  believe  the  average  price 
at  which  the  thousands  of  noisome  ailanthuses  that  now  infest  our 
streets  have  been  sold,  is  above  a  dollar.)  No  buyer  pays  so  much 
and  so  willingly,  as  the  citizen  who  has  only  one  lot  front,  and  five 
dollars  each  has  been  no  uncommon  price  in  New- York  for  "  trees 
of  heaven." 

After  our  nurserymen  have  practised  awhile  this  preparation  of 
the  tulip-trees  for  the  streets  by  previous  removals,  they  will  gradu- 
ally find  a  demand  for  the  finer  oaks,  beeches,  and  other  trees  now 
considered  difficult  to  transplant  for  the  same  cause — and  about 
which  there  is  no  difficulty  at  all,  if  this  precaution  is  taken.  Any 

*  In  many  continental  nurseries,  this  annual  preparation  in  the  nursery, 
takes  place  until  fruit  trees  of  bearing  size  can  be  removed  without  the 
slightest  injury  to  the  crop  of  the  same  year. 


318 


TREES. 


body  can  eaten  "  suckers"  in  a  still  pond,  but  a  trout  must  be  tickler1 
with  dainty  bait.  Yet  true  sportsmen  do  not,  for  this  reason,  prefei 
angling  with  worms  about  the  margin  of  stagnant  pools,  when  they 
can  whip  the  gold-spangled  beauties  out  of  swift  streams  with  a 
little  skill  and  preparation,  and  we  trust  that  m  future  no  true  lover 
of  trees  will  plant  "  suckers  "  to  torment  his  future  days  and  sight, 
when  he  may,  with  a  little  more  pains,  have  the  satisfaction  of  en- 
joying the  shade  of  the  freshest  and  comeliest  of  American  forest 
trees. 


VI. 


RARE  EVERGREEN  TREES. 

June,  1847. 

AN  American  may  be  allowed  some  honest  pride  in  the  beauty 
and  profusion  of  fine  forest  trees,  natives  of  our  western  hemi- 
sphere. North  America  is  the  land  of  oaks,  pines,  and  magnolias, 
to  say  nothing  of  the  lesser  genera ;  and  the  parks  and  gardens  of 
all  Europe  owe  their  choicest  sylvan  treasures  to  our  native  woods 
and  hills. 

But  there  is  one  tree,  almost  every  where  naturalized  in  Europe 
— an  evergreen  tree  as  pre-eminently  grand  and  beautiful  among 
evergreens,  as  a  proud  ship  of  the  line  among  little  coasting-vessels 
— a  historical  tree,  as  rich  in  sacred  and  poetic  association  as  Mount 
Sinai  itself — a  hardy  tree,  from  a  region  of  mountain  snows,  which 
bears  the  winter  of  the  middle  States  ;  and  yet,  notwithstanding  all 
these  unrivalled  claims  to  attention,  we  believe  there  are  not  at  this 
moment  a  dozen  good  specimens  of  it,  twenty  feet  high,  in  the 
United  States. 

We  mean,  of  course,  that  world-renowned  tree,  the  Cedar  of 
Lebanon :  that  tree  which  was  the  favorite  of  the  wisest  of  kings ; 
the  wood  of  which  kindled  the  burnt-offerings  of  the  Israelites  in  the 
time  of  Moses ;  of  which  was  built  the  temple  of  Solomon,  and 
which  the  Prophet  Ezekiel  so  finely  used  as  a  simile  in  describing 
a  great  empire ; — "  Behold,  the  Assyrian  was  a  cedar  in  Lebanon, 
with  fair  branches,  and  with  a  shadowing  shroud,  and  of  a  high 
stature ;  and  his  top  was  among  the  thick  boughs.  His  boughs 
were  multiplied,  and  his  branches  became  long.    The  fir-trees  were 


320 


TREES. 


not  like  his  boughs,  nor  the  chestnut-trees  like  his  branches,  nor  any 
tree  in  the  garden  of  God  like  unto  him  in  beauty." 

The  original  forests  of  this  tree  upon  Mount  Lebanon,  must  have 
been  truly  vast,  as  Solomon's  "  forty  thousand  hewers "  were  em- 
ployed there  in  cutting  the  timber  used  in  building  the  temple.  It 
is  indeed  most  probable  that  they  never  recovered  or  were  renewed 
afterwards,  since  modern  travellers  give  accounts  of  their  gradual 
disappearance.  Such,  however,  is  the  great  age  and  longevity  of 
this  tree,  that  it  is  highly  credible  that  the  few  existing  old  specimens 
on  Mount  Lebanon,  are  remnants  of  the  ancient  forest.  Lamartine, 
who  made  a  voyage  to  the  Holy  Land,  and  visited  these  trees  in 
1832,  gives  the  following  account  of  them  : 

"  We  alighted  and  sat  down  under  a  rock  to  contemplate  them. 
These  trees  are  the  most  renowned  natural  monuments  in  the  uni- 
verse ;  religion,  poetry,  and  history,  have  all  equally  celebrated 
them.  The  Arabs  of  all  sects  entertain  a  traditional  veneration  for 
these  trees.  They  attribute  to  them  not  only  a  vegetative  power, 
which  enables  them  to  live  eternally,  but  also  an  intelligence,  which 
causes  them  to  manifest  signs  of  wisdom  and  foresight,  similar  to 
those  of  instinct  and  reason  in  man.  They  are  said  to  understand 
the  changes  of  seasons ;  they  stir  their  vast  branches  as  if  they  were 
limbs ;  they  spread  out  and  contract  their  boughs,  inclining  them 
towards  heaven,  or  towards  earth,  according  as  the  snow  prepares  to 
fall  or  to  melt.  These  trees  diminish  in  every  succeeding  age. 
Travellers  formerly  counted  30  or  40  ;  more  recently  17  ;  more  re- 
cently still  only  12  ;  there  are  now  but  7.  These,  however,  from 
their  size  and  general  appearance,  may  be  fairly  presumed  to  have 
existed  in  biblical  times.  Around  these  ancient  witnesses  of  ages 
long  since  past,  there  still  remains  a  grove  of  yellower  cedars,  ap- 
pearing to  me  to  form  a  group  of  400  or  500  trees  or  shrubs.  Every 
year,  in  the  month  of  June,  the  inhabitants  of  Beschieria,  of  Eden,  of 
Kanobin,  and  the  other  neighboring  valleys  and  villages,  clamber  up 
to  these  cedars,  and  celebrate  mass  at  their  feet.  How  many  pray- 
ers have  resounded  under  these  branches ;  and  what  more  beautiful 
canopy  for  worship  can  exist ! " 

The  trunks  of  the  largest  of  these  venerable  trees  measure  from 
30  to  40  feet  in  circumference.    The  finest  and  most  numerous 


RARE  EVERGREEN  TREES. 


321 


Cedars  of  Lebanon  in  the  world,  at  the  present  moment,  however, 
are  in  Great  Britain.  A  people  so  fond  of  park  scenery  as  the  Eng- 
lish, could  not  but  be  early  impressed  with  the  magnificence  of  this 
oriental  cedar.  It  was  accordingly  introduced  into  England  as  early 
as  1683,  and  the  two  oldest  trees  on  record  there  are  said  to  have 
been  planted  by  Queen  Elizabeth.  The  Duke  of  Richmond  of  the 
year  1761,  planted  1000  young  Cedars  of  Lebanon;  and  nearly  all 
the  larger  estates  in  England  boast  their  noble  specimens  of  this  tree 
at  the  present  day.  The  tallest  specimen  in  England,  is  that  at 
Strathfieldsaye,  the  seat  of  the  Duke  of  Wellington,  which  is  108 
feet  high.  Woburn  Abbey  boasts  also  many  superb  specimens 
varying  from  60  to  90  feet  high,  nine  of  which  measure  from  4  to  6 
feet  each  in  the  diameter  of  their  trunks.  But  the  largest,  and,  ac- 
cording to  Loudon,  unquestionably  the  handsomest  cedar  in  Eng- 
land, is  the  magnificent  specimen  at  Syon  House,  the  seat  of  the 
Duke  of  Northumberland.  This  tree  is  72  feet  high,  the  diameter 
of  its  head  117  feet,  and  of  the  trunk  8  feet.  We  give  a  miniature 
engraving  of  this  tree 
(Fig.  1)  from  the 
Arboretum  Britanni- 
cum,  and  also  of  the 
tree  at  Foxley,  plant- 
ed by  Sir  Uvedale 
Price,  which  is  50 
feet  high,  with  a 
trunk  measuring 
feet  in  diameter. 
The  finest  speci- 

P        .  Fig.  1.   The  Syon  Cedar. 

men  oi  this  ever- 
green in  the  United  States,  is  that  upon  the  grounds  of  Thomas 
Ash,  Esq.,  at  Throg's  Neck,  Westchester  county,  N.  Y.  We  made 
a  hasty  sketch  of  this  tree  in  1845,  of  which  the  annexed  engraving 
is  a  miniature.  (Fig.  2.)  It  is  about  50  feet  high,  and  has,  we 
learn,  been  planted  over  40  years.  It  is  a  striking  and  beautiful 
tree,  but  has  as  yet  by  no  means  attained  the  grandeur  and  dignity 
which  a  few  more  years  will  give  it.  Still,  it  is  a  very  fine  tree,  and 
21 


322 


TREES. 


no  one  can  look  upon  it  without  being  inspired  with  a  desire  to 
plant  Cedars  of  Lebanon. 

The  most  remarkable  peculiarity  in  the  Cedar  of  Lebanon  is  the 
horizontal  disposition  of  its  wide  spreading  branches.  This  is  not 
apparent  in  very  young  trees,  but 
soon  becomes  so  as  they  begin  to  de- 
velope  large  heads.  Though  in  alti- 
tude this  tree  is  exceeded  by  some  of 
the  pines  lately  discovered  in  Oregon, 
which  reach  truly  gigantic  heights, 
yet  in  breadth  and  massiveness  it  far 
exceeds  all  other  evergreen  trees,  and 
when  old  and  finely  developed  on 
every  side,  is  not  equalled  in  an  or- 
namental point  of  view,  by  any  syl- 
van tree  of  temperate  regions. 

Its  character  being  essentially 
grand  and  magnificent,  it  therefore 
Fig.  2.  Cedar  or  Lebanon,  at  Mr.  Ash's,  should  only  be  planted  where  there 

near  New-York.  jg    gufficient    room    for   jts  develop- 

ment on  every  side.  Crowded  among  other  trees,  all  its  fine 
breadth  and  massiveness  is  lost,  and  it  is  drawn  up  with  a  narrow 
head  like  any  other  of  the  pine  family.  But  planted  in  the  midst 
of  a  broad  lawn,  it  will  eventually  form  a  sublime  object,  far  more 
impressive  and  magnificent  than  most  of  the  country  houses  which 
belong  to  the  private  life  of  a  republic. 

The  Cedar  of  Lebanon  grows  in  almost  every  soil,  from  the 
poorest  gravel  to  the  richest  loam.  It  has  been  remarked  in  Eng- 
land that  its  growth  is  most  rapid  in  localities  where,  though  plant- 
ed in  a  good  dry.  soil,  its  roots  can  reach  water — such  as  situations 
near  the  margins  of  ponds  or  springs.  In  general,  its  average  growth 
in  this  country  in  favorable  soils  is  about  a  foot  in  a  year ;  and  when 
the  soil  is  very  deeply  trenched  before  planting,  or  when  its  roots 
are  not  stinted  in  the  supply  of  moisture  during  the  summer,  it  fre- 
quently advances  with  double  that  rapidity. 

Although  hardy  here,  we  understand  in  New  England  it  requires 
slight  protection  in  winter,  while  the  trees  are  yet  small.  The 


RARE  EVERGREEN  TREES. 


323 


shelter  afforded  by  sticking  a  few  branches  of  evergreens  in  the 
ground  around  it,  will  fully  answer  this  purpose.  Wherever  the 
Isabella  grape  matures  fully  in  the  open  air,  it  may  be  cultivated 
successfully.  The  few  plants  that  are  offered  for  sale  by  the  nursery- 
men in  this  country,  are  imported  from  England  in  pots,  but  there 
is  no  reason  why  they  should  not  be  raised  here  from  seeds,  and 
sold  in  larger  quantities  at  a  reduced  price.  The  seeds  vegetate 
freely,  even  when  three  or  four  years  old,  and  the  cones  containing 
them  may  easily  be  obtained  of  London  seedsmen.* 

The  cone  of  the  Cedar  of  Lebanon  (of  which  figure  3  is  a  re- 
duced drawing)  is  about  4  inches  long,  and  is  beautifully  formed. 

The  spring  is  the  better  time  for  plant- 
ing the  Cedar  of  Lebanon,  in  this  climate. 
When  the  small  trees  are  grown  in  pots, 
there  is  no  difficulty  in  transporting  them 
to  any  distance,  and  as  the  months  of 
September  and  October  are  the  best  for 
importing  them  from  England,  we  trust 
our  leading  nurserymen  who  are  now 
importing  thousands  of  fruit  trees  from 
London  and  Paris  annually,  will  provide 
a  sufficient  stock  of  this  most  desirable 
evergreen  for  the  spring  sales  of  1848. 
If  the  Cedar  of  Lebanon  does  not  become 
a  popular  tree  with  all  intelligent  planters 
in  this  country,  who  have  space  enough 
to  allow  it  to  show  its  beauties,  and  a 
Cedw^Lebano^one-s^thof  the  climate  not  too  inclement  for  its  growth, 
natural  size.  we  kave  greativ  overrated  the 

taste  of  those  engaged  in  rural  improvements  at  the  present  mo- 

*  Mr.  Ash  presented  us  with  some  cones  from  his  tree  in  1844,  the  seeds 
from  which  we  planted  and  they  vegetated  very  readily.  They  should  be 
sown  in  the  autumn,  in  light,  rich  soil,  in  broad  flat  boxes  about  four 
inches  deep.  These  should  be  placed  in  a  cellar  till  spring,  and  then  kept 
during  the  summer  following  in  a  cool  and  rather  shaded  situation — the 
next  winter  in  a  cellar  or  cold  pit,  and  the  succeeding  spring  they  may  be 
transplanted  into  the  nnrsery. 


324 


TREES. 


inent  in  the  United  States.  The  only  reason  why  this  grandest  and 
most  interesting  of  all  evergreen  trees,  which  may  be  grown  in  this 
country  as  easily  as  the  hemlock,  wherever  the  peach  bears  well,  has 
not  already  been  extensively  planted,  is  owing  to  two  causes.  First : 
that  its  merits  and  its  adaptation  to  our  soil  and  climate,  are  not 
generally  known ;  and,  second,  that  it  has  as  yet,  without  any  suf- 
ficient reason,  been  difficult  to  procure  it,  even  in  our  largest  nurse- 
ies.  We  trust  that  our  remarks  may  have  the  effect  of  inspiring 
many  with  an  appreciation  of  its  great  charms,  and  that  our  ener- 
getic nurserymen,  well  knowing  that  there  are  thousands  of  young 
trees  to  be  had  in  England,  which  may  be  imported  in  autumn, 
from  one  to  three  feet  high,  and  in  pots,  in  perfect  condition,  will  be 
able  in  future  to  supply  all  orders  for  Cedars  of  Lebanon. 

While  we  are  upon  the  subject  of  evergreen  trees,  we  will  briefly 
call  the  attention  of  our  readers  to  another  rare  coniferous  species, 
which  is  likely  to  prove  a  very  interesting  addition  to  our  hardy  ar- 
boretums.  This  is  the  Chili  Pine,  Araucaria  imbricata,  a  singu- 
lar and  noble  evergreen  from  the  Cordilleras  mountains,  in  South 
America,  where  it  attains  the  height  of  150  feet. 

This  pine,  commonly  known  as  the  Araucaria  (from  Araucamsy 
the  name  of  the  Chilian  tribe  in  whose  country  it  grows),  is  distin- 
guished by  its  scale-like  foliage,  closely  overlaid  or  imbricated,  its 
horizontal  branches  springing  out  from  the  trunk  in  whorls  or  circles, 
and  its  immense  globular  cone,  or  fruit,  as  large  as  a  man's  head, 
containing  numerous  nutritious  and  excellent  nuts.  A  single  fruit 
contains  between  two  hundred  and  three  hundred  of  these  kernels, 
which  Dr.  Poeppig  informs  us,  supply  the  place  of  both  the  palm 
and  com  to  the  Indians  of  the  Chilian  Andes.  "  As  there  are  fre- 
quently twenty  or  thirty  fruits  on  a  stem,  and  as  even  a  hearty  eater 
among  the  Indians,  except  he  should  be  wholly  deprived  of  every 
other  kind  of  sustenance,  cannot  consume  more  than  two  hundred 
nuts  in  a  day,  it  is  obvious  that  eighteen  Araucaria  trees  will  main- 
tain a  single  person  for  a  whole  year."  The  kernel  is  of  the  shape 
of  an  almond,  but  twice  as  large,  and  is  eaten  either  fresh,  boiled, 
or  roasted ;  and  for  winter's  use,  the  women  prepare  a  kind  of  pastry 
from  them.* 


*  Arboretum  Britannicum,  p.  2438. 


RARE  EVERGREEN  TREES. 


325 


"We  borrow  from  the  Arboretum  Britannicum,  an  engraving  one- 
sixth  of  the  size  of  nature,  showing  the  young  branch  and  leaves 
(fig.  4),  and  also  another  (fig.  5),  which  is  a  portrait  of  a  specimen 

growing  at  Kew  Garden, 
England,  taken  in  1838, 
when  it  was  only  twelve 
feet  high.  We  also  add, 
from  the  London  Horticul- 
tural Magazine,  the  following 
memorandum  respecting  a 
tree  at  Dropmore,  taken  last 
summer  (1846). 

"  The  following  is  the 
height  and  dimensions  of 
the  finest  specimen  we  have 
of  this  noble  tree,  and  pro- 
blably  the  largest  in  Europe : 
height  22  feet  6  inches;  di- 
ameter of  the  spread  of 
branches  near  the  ground, 
10  feet  6  inches  ;  girth  of 
the  stem  near  the  ground, 
2  feet  10  inches  ;  five  feet 
above  the  ground,  2  feet. 
The  tree  has  made  a  rapid 
growth  this  season,  and  pro- 
mises to  get  a  foot  higher,  or  more,  before  autumn  ;  it  is  about 
sixteen  years  old,  and  has  never  had  the  least  protection ;  it  stands 
in  rather  an  exposed  situation,  on  a  raised  mound,  in  which  the  tree 
delights.  The  soil  is  loam,  with  a  small  portion  of  poor  peat,  and 
the  plant  has  never  been  watered,  even  in  the  hottest  season  we 
have  had.  A  wet  subsoil  is  certain  death  to  the  araucaria  in  very 
wet  seasons.  A  plant  here,  from  a  cutting,  made  a  leading  shoot 
in  the  year  1833,  and  is  now  19  feet  6  inches  in  height,  and  has 
every  appearance  of  making  a  splendid  plant." 

In  Scotland,  also,  it  stands  without  the  slightest  protection,  and 
we  have  before  us,  in  the  Revue  Horticole,  an  account  of  a  planta- 


Fig.  4— Branch  of  the  Araucaria,  or  Chili  Pine,  one- 
sixth  of  the  natural  size. 


326 


TREES. 


tion  of  these  trees  at  Brest,  in  the  north  of  France,  a  climate  very 
much  like  our  own.  The  soil  is  a  light  sandy  loam,  poor  and  thin. 
Yet  the  trees,  fully  exposed,  or  sheltered  only  by  a  small  belt  of 
pines,  have  proved  per- 
fectly hardy,  resisting 
without  injury,  even  the 
rigorous  winter  of  1829- 
30,  when  the  thermome- 
ter was  several  degrees 
below  zero  of  Fahren- 
heit. "  The  largest  now 
measures  about  twenty 
feet  in  height.  Its  cir- 
cles or  tiers  of  branches 
are  five  in  number,  dis- 
posed at  perfectly  equal 
distances,  and  closely  re- 
sembling, in  effect,  a 
magnificent  pyramid. — 
The  stem,  the  branches, 
and  their  shoots,  are  all 

Completely  clothed  with  FiS-  5.— The  Chili  Pine,  or  Araucania-Tree. 

leaves  of  a  fine  deep  green  ;  these  leaves  are  regularly  and  symmet- 
rically disposed,  and  are  remarkable  in  their  being  bent  backwards 
at  their  extremities,  giving  the  effect,  as  well  as  the  form,  of  the 
antique  girandole." 

Mr.  Buist,  the  well  known  Philadelphia  nurseryman,  who  has 
already  distributed  a  good  many  specimens  of  this  tree  in  the  United 
States,  informed  us  last  season,  that  it  is  entirely  hardy  in  Philadel- 
phia ;  and  our  correspondent,  Dr.  Vaik,  of  Flushing,  who  has  in  his 
garden  a  specimen  three  feet  high,  writes  us  that  it  has  borne  the 
past  winter  without  protection,  and  apparently  uninjured. 

We  may  therefore  reasonably  hope  that  this  unique  South 
American  tree,  of  most  singular  foliage,  striking  symmetry,  and  gi- 
gantic eatable  fruit,  will  also  take  its  place  in  our  ornamental  plan- 
tations, along  with  the  cedar  of  Lebanon  and  the  Deodar  cedar, 
two  of  the  grandest  trees  of  the  Asian  world. 


vn. 


A  WORD  IN  FAVOR  OF  EVERGREENS. 

May,  1848. 

"  TTTHAT  is  the  reason,"  said  an  intelligent  European  horticul- 
V  V  turist  to  us  lately,  "  that  the  Americans  employ  so  few  ever- 
greens in  then  ornamental  plantations  ?  Abroad,  they  are  the  trees 
most  sought  after,  most  highly  prized,  and  most  valued  in  landscape- 
gardening  ;  and  that,  too,  in  countries  where  the  winters  are  com- 
paratively mild  and  short.  Here,  in  the  northern  United  States, 
where  this  season  is  both  long  and  severe,  and  where  you  have,  in 
your  forests,  the  finest  evergreens,  they  are  only  sparingly  introduced 
into  lawns  or  pleasure-grounds." 

Our  friend  is  right.  There  is  a  lamentable  poverty  of  evergreens 
in  the  grounds  of  many  country  places  in  this  country.  Our  planta- 
tions are  mostly  deciduous ;  and  while  there  are  thousands  of  per- 
sons who  plant,  in  this  country,  such  trashy  trees  (chiefly  fit  for 
towns)  as  the  ailanthus,  there  is  not  one  planter  in  a  hundred  but 
contents  himself  with  a  few  fir  trees,  as  the  sole  representatives  of 
the  grand  and  rich  foliaged  family  of  evergreens. 

They  forget  that,  as  summer  dies,  evergreens  form  the  richest 
back-ground  to  the  kaleidoscope  coloring  of  the  changing  autumn 
leaves ;  that  in  winter,  they  rob  the  chilly  frost-king  of  his  sternest 
terrors ;  that  in  spring,  they  give  a  southern  and  verdant  character 
to  the  landscape  in  the  first  sunny  day,  when  not  even  the  earliest 
poplar  or  willow  has  burst  its  buds. 

More  than  this, — to  look  at  the  useful  as  well  as  the  picturesque, 
they  are  the  body  guards — the  grenadiers — the  outworks  and  forti- 


328 


TREES. 


fications — which  properly  defend  the  house  and  grounds  from  the 
cold  winds,  and  the  driving  storms,  that  sweep  pitilessly  over  unpro- 
tected places  in  many  parts  of  the  country.  Well  grown  belts  of 
evergreens — pines  and  firs,  which 

 "in  conic  forms  arise, 

And  with  a  pointed  spear  divide  the  skies," 

have,  in  their  congregated  strength,  a  power  of  shelter  and  protec- 
tion that  no  inexperienced  person  can  possibly  understand,  without 
actual  experience  and  the  evidence  of  his  own  senses.  Many  a 
place,  almost  uninhabitable  from  the  rude  blasts  of  wind  that  sweep 
over  it,  has  been  rendered  comparatively  calm  and  sheltered ;  many 
a  garden,  so  exposed  that  the  cultivation  of  tender  trees  and  plants 
was  almost  impossible,  has  been  rendered  mild  and  genial  in  its  cli- 
mate by  the  growth  of  a  close  shelter,  composed  of  masses  and 
groups  of  evergreen  trees. 

Compared  with  England, — that  country  whose  parks  and  pleas- 
ure grounds  are  almost  wholly  evergreen,  because  her  climate  is  so 
wonderfully  congenial  to  their  qulture  that  dozens  of  species  grow 
with  the  greatest  luxuriance  there,  which  neither  France,  Germany, 
nor  the  northern  United  States  will  produce;  we  say,  compared 
with  England,  the  variety  of  evergreens  which  it  is  possible  for  us  to 
cultivate  is  quite  limited.  Still,  though  the  variety  is  less,  the  gen- 
eral effect  that  may  be  produced  is  the  same  ;  and  there  is  no  apo- 
logy for  our  neglecting,  at  least,  the  treasures  that  lie  at  our  very 
gates,  and  by  our  road-sides — the  fine  indigenous  trees  of  our  coun- 
try. These  are  within  every  one's  reach  ;  and  even  these,  if  properly 
introduced,  would  give  a  perpetual  richness. and  beauty  to  our  orna- 
mental grounds,  of  which  they  are  at  this  time,  with  partial  excep- 
tions, almost  destitute. 

As  we  are  addressing  ourselves,  now,  chiefly  to  beginners,  or 
those  who  have  hitherto  neglected  this  branch  of  arboriculture,  we 
may  commence  by  mentioning,  at  the  outset,  four  evergreen  trees 
worthy  of  attention — indeed,  of  almost  universal  attention,  in  our 
ornamental  plantations.  Those  are  the  Hemlock,  the  White  Pine, 
the  Norway  Spruce,  and  the  Balsam  Fir. 

We  place  the  hemlock  (Abies  canadensis)  first,  as  we  consider 


A  WORD  IN  FAVOR  OF  EVERGREENS. 


329 


it,  beyond  all  question,  the  most  graceful  and  beautiful  evergreen 
tree  commonly  grown  in  this  countiy.  In  its  wild  haunts,  by  the 
side  of  some  steep  mountain,  or  on  the  dark  wooded  banks  of  some 
deep  valley,  it  is  most  often  a  grand  and  picturesque  tree  ;  when,  as 
in  some  parts  of  the  northern  States,  it  covers  countless  acres  of  wild 
forest  land,  it  becomes  gloomy  and  monotonous.  Hence,  there  are 
few  of  our  readers,  unfamiliar  as  they  are  with  it  but  in  these 
phases,  who  have  the  least  idea  of  its  striking  beauty  when  grown 
atone,  in  a  smooth  lawn,  its  branches  extending  freely  on  all  sides, 
and  sweeping  the  ground,  its  loose  spray  and  full  feathery  foliage 
floating  freely  in  the  air,  and  its  proportions  full  of  the  finest  sym- 
metry and  harmony.  For  airy  gracefulness,  and  the  absence  of  that 
stiffness  more  or  less  prevalent  in  most  evergreens,  we  must  be  al- 
lowed, therefore,  to  claim  the  first  place  for  the  hemlock,  as  a  tree 
for  the  lawn  or  park. 

Unfortunately,  the  hemlock  has  the  reputation  of  being  a  diffi- 
cult tree  to  transplant ;  and  though  we  have  seen  a  thousand  of 
them  removed  with  scarcely  the  loss  of  half  a  dozen  plants,  yet  we 
are  bound  to  confess,  that,  with  the  ordinary  rude  handling  of  the 
common  gardener,  it  is  often  impatient  of  removal.  The  truth  is, 
all  evergreens  are  far  more  tender  in  their  roots  than  deciduous 
trees.  They  will  not  bear  that  exposure  to  the  sun  and  air,  even  for 
a  short  period,  which  seems  to  have  little  effect  upon  most  deciduous 
trees.  Once  fairly  dried  and  shrivelled,  their  roots  are  slow  to  re- 
gain their  former  vital  power,  and  the  plant  in  consequence  dies. 

This  point  well  understood  and  guarded  against,  the  hemlock  is 
by  no  means  a  difficult  tree  to  remove  from  the  nurseries.*  When 
taken  from  the  woods,  it  is  best  done  with  a  frozen  ball  of  earth  in 
the  winter ;  or,  if  the  soil  is  sufficiently  tenacious,  with  a  damp 
ball  in  the  spring,  as  has  lately  been  recommended  by  one  of  our 
correspondents. 

Of  all  the  well  known  pines,  we  give  the  preference  to  our  native 
White  Pine  {Pinus  strobus)  for  ornamental  purposes.    The  soft 

*  In  the  nurseries  this,  and  other  evergreens,  over  four  feet,  should  be 
regularly  root  pruned  ;  i.  e.,  the  longest  roots  shortened  with  a  spade  every 
year.  Treated  thus,  there  is  no  difficulty  whatever  in  removing  trees  of  ten 
or  twelve  feet  high. 


330 


TREES. 


and  agreeable  hue  of  its  pliant  foliage,.the  excellent  form  of  the  tree, 
and  its  adaptation  to  a  great  variety  of  soils  and  sites,  are  all  recom- 
mendations not  easily  overlooked. 

Besides,  it  bears  transplanting  particularly  well ;  and  is,  on  this 
account  also,  more  generally  seen  than  any  other  species  in  our  orna- 
mental plantations.  But  its  especial  merit,  as  an  ornamental  tree, 
is  the  perpetually  fine,  rich,  lively  green  of  its  foliage.  In  the 
northern  States,  many  evergreens  lose  their  bright  color  in  mid- 
winter, owing  to  the  severity  of  the  cold ;  and  though  they  regain 
it  quickly  in  the  first  mild  days  of  spring,  yet  this  temporary  dingi- 
ness,  at  the  season  when  verdure  is  rarest  and  most  prized,  is,  unde- 
niably, a  great  defect.  Both  the  hemlock  and  the  white  pine  are 
exceptions.  Even  in  the  greatest  depression  of  the  thermometer 
known  to  our  neighbors  on  the  "  disputed  boundary"  fine,  we  be- 
lieve the  verdure  of  these  trees  is  the  same  fine  unchanging  green. 
Again,  this  thin  summer  growth  is  of  such  a  soft  and  lively  color, 
that  they  are  (unlike  some  of  the  other  pines,  the  red  cedar,  etc.) 
as  pleasant  to  look  upon,  even  in  June,  as  any  fresh  and  full  foliaged 
deciduous  tree,  rejoicing  in  all  its  full  breadth  of  new  summer  robes. 
We  place  the  white  pine,  therefore,  among  the  first  in  the  regards 
of  the  ornamental  planter. 

Perhaps  the  most  popular  foreign  evergreen  in  this  country  is 
the  Norway  Spruce  (Abies  excelsa.)  In  fact,  it  is  so  useful  and 
valuable  a  tree,  that  it  is  destined  to  become  much  more  popular 
still.  So  hardy,  that  it  is  used  as  a  nurse  plant,  to  break  off  the 
wind  in  exposed  sites,  and  shelter  more  tender  trees  in  young  planta- 
tions ;  so  readily  adapting  itself  to  any  site,  that  it  thrives  upon  all 
soils,  from  light  sand,  or  dry  gravel,  to  deep  moist  loam  or  clay ;  so 
accommodating  in  its  habits,  that  it  will  grow  under  the  shade  of 
other  trees,  or  in  the  most  exposed  positions  ;  there  is  no  planter  of 
new  places,  or  improver  of  old  ones,  who  will  not  find  it  necessary 
to  call  it  in  to  his  assistance.  Then,  again,  the  variety  of  purposes 
for  which  this  tree  may  be  used  is  so  indefinite.  Certainly,  there  are 
few  trees  more  strikingly  picturesque  than  a  fine  Norway  spruce, 
40  or  50  years  old,  towering  up  from  a  base  of  thick  branches  which 
droop  and  fall  to  the  very  lawn,  and  hang  off  in  those  depending 
curves,  which  make  it  such  a  favorite  with  artists.    Any  one  who 


A  WORD  IN  FAVOR  OF  EVERGREENS. 


331 


wishes  ocular  demonstration  of  the  truth  of  this,  will  do  well  to 
daguerreotype  in  his  mind  (for  certainly,  once  seen,  he  can  never 
forget  them)  the  fine  specimens  on  the  lawn  at  the  seat  of  Col.  Per- 
kins, near  Boston ;  or  two  or  three,  still  larger,  and  almost  equally 
well  developed,  in  the  old  Linnaean  Garden  of  Mr.  Winter,  at  Flush- 
ing, Long  Island. 

The  Norway  spruce,  abroad,  is  thought  to  grow  rapidly  only  on 
soils  somewhat  damp.  But  this  is  not  the  case  in  America.  "We 
saw,  lately,  a  young  plantation  of  them  of  10  or  12  years  growth,  in 
the  ground  of  Capt.  Forbes,  of  Milton  Hill,  near  Boston,  on  veiy  high 
and  dry  gravelly  soil,  many  of  which  made  leading  shoots,  last  sea- 
son, of  three  or  four  feet.  Their  growth  may  be  greatly  promoted, 
as  indeed  may  that  of  all  evergreens,  by  a  liberal  top-dressing  of 
ashes,  applied  early  every  spring  or  autumn. 

Little  seems  to  be  known  in  the  United  States,  as  yet,  of  the 
great  value  of  the  Norway  spruce,  for  hedges*  We  have  no  doubt 
whatever  that  it  will  soon  become  the  favorite  plant  for  evergreen 
hedges,  as  the  buckthorn  and  Osage  orange  are  already  for  decidu- 
ous hedges  in  this  country.  So  hardy  as  to  grow  every  where,  so 
strong,  and  bearing  the  shears  so  well,  as  to  form  an  almost  impene- 
trable wall  of  foliage,  it  is  precisely  adapted  to  thousands  of  situa- 
tions in  the  northern  half  of  the  Union,  where  an  unfailing  shelter, 
screen,  and  barrier,  are  wanted  at  all  seasons.  \ 

*  This  plant  may  be  had  from  six  inches  to  two  feet  high  at  the  English 
nurseries,  at  such  extremely  low  prices  per  1000,  that  our  nurserymen  can 
well  afford  to  import  and  grow  it  a  year  or  two  in  their  grounds,  and  sell  it 
wholesale  for  hedges,  at  rates  that  will  place  it  in  the  reach  of  all  planters. 
Autumn  is  the  safest  season  to  import  it  from  England;  as,  if  packed  dry  and 
shipped  at  that  season,  not  ten  plants  in  a  thousand  will  die  on  the  passage. 
We  hope  in  a  couple  of  years  it  will  be  obtainable,  in  large  quantities,  in 
every  large  nursery  in  America.  "We  also  observe  that  Elwanger  &  Barry, 
at  Rochester,  advertise  it  at  the  present  time  as  a  hedge  plant. 

f  "Wo  tree,"  says  the  Arboretum  Britannicum,  "is better  adapted  than 
this  for  planting  in  narrow  strips  for  shelter  or  seclusion  :  because,  though 
the  trees  in  the  interior  of  the  strip  may  become  naked  below,  yet  those  from 
the  outside  will  retain  their  branches  from  the  ground  upwards,  and  effectu- 
ally prevent  the  eye  from  seeing  through  the  screen.  The  tendency  of  the 
tree  to  preserve  its  lower  branches  renders  it  an  excellent  protection  to 


332 


TREES. 


The  Balsam  Fir  (Picea  balsamea),  or,  as  it  is  often  called,  the 
Balm  of  Gilead  Fir,  is  a  neat,  dark  green  evergreen  tree,  perhaps 
more  generally  employed  for  small  grounds  and  plantations  than  any 
other  by  our  gardeners.  In  truth,  it  is  better  adapted  to  small  gar- 
dens, yards,  or  narrow  lawns,  than  for  landscape  gardening  on  a 
large  scale,  as  its  beauty  is  of  a  formal  kind ;  and  though  the  tree 
often  grows  to  thirty  or  forty  feet,  its  appearance  is  never  more 
pleasing  than  when  it  is  from  ten  to  fifteen  or  twenty  feet  high. 
The  dark  green  hue  of  its  foliage,  which  is  pretty  constant  at  all 
seasons,  and  the  comparative  ease  with  which  it  is  transplanted,  will 
always  commend  it  to  the  ornamental  improver.  But  as  a  full 
grown  tree,  it  is  not  to  be  compared  for  a  moment,  to  any  one  of  the 
three  species  of  evergreens  that  Ave  have  already  noticed ;  since  it 
becomes  stiff  and  formal  as  it  grows  old,  instead  of  graceful  or  pictu- 
resque, like  the  hemlock,  white  pine,  or  Norway  spruce.  Its  chief 
value  is  for  shrubberies,  small  gardens,  or  courtyards,  in  a  formal  or 
regular  style.  The  facility  of  obtaining  it,  added  to  the  excellent 
color  of  its  foliage,  and  the  great  hardiness  of  the  plant,  induce  us  to 
give  it  a  place  among  the  four  evergreens  worthy  of  the  universal 
attention  of  our  ornamental  planters. 

The  Arbor  Vitce,  so  useful  for  hedges  and  screens,  is,  we  find,  so 

game ;  and  for  this  purpose,  and  also  for  the  sake  of  its  verdure  during  win- 
ter, •when  planted  among  deciduous  trees  and  cut  down  to  within  fire  or  six 
feet  of  the  ground,  it  affords  a  very  good  and  very  beautiful  undergrowth. 
The  Norway  spruce  bears  the  shears ;  and  as  it  is  of  rapid  growth,  it  makes 
excellent  hedges  for  shelter  in  nursery  gardens.  Such  hedges  are  not  unfre- 
quent  in  Switzerland,  and  also  in  Carpathia,  and  some  parts  of  Baden  and 
Bavaria.  In  1844,  there  were  spruce  hedges  in  some  gentlemen's  grounds 
in  the  neighborhood  of  Moscow,  between  30  feet  and  40  feet  high.  At  the 
Whim  (near  Edinburgh),  a  Norway  spruce  hedge  was  planted  in  1823  with 
plants  10  feet  high,  put  in  3  feet  apart  The  whole  were  cut  down  5  feet, 
and  afterwards  trimmed  in  a  regular  conical  shape.  The  hedge,  thus  formed, 
was  first  cut  on  Jan.  25,  the  year  after  planting ;  and  as  the  plants  were 
found  to  sustain  no  injury,  about  the  end  of  that  month  has  been  chosen  for 
cutting  it  every  year  since.  Every  portion  of  this  hedge  is  beautiful  and 
green ;  and  the  annual  growths  are  very  short,  giving  the  surface  of  this 
hedge  a  fine,  healthy  appearance."  [This  is  an  excellent  illustration  of  the 
capacity  of  this  tree  for  being  sheared ;  but  good  hedges  are  more  easily  and 
better  formed  by  using  plants  about  18  inches  or  2  feet  high.] 


A  WORD  IN  FAVOR  OF  EVERGREENS. 


333 


rapidly  becoming  popular  among  our  planters,  that  it  needs  little 
further  commendation. 

Among  the  foreign  evergreens  worthy  of  attention,  are  the  Chili 
pine  (Araucaria),  the  Cedar  of  Lebanon,  and  the  Deodar  cedar, — 
three  very  noble  trees,  already  described  in  previous  pages,  and 
worthy  of  attention  in  the  highest  degree.  The  two  first  have  stood 
the  past  winter  well,  in  our  own  grounds,  and  are  likely  to  prove 
quite  hardy  here. 

For  a  rapid  growing,  bold,  and  picturesque  evergreen,  the  Aus- 
trian pine  (Pinus  Aicstriaca)  is  well  deserving  of  attention.  We 
find  it  remarkably  hardy,  adapting  itself  to  all  soils  (though  said  to 
grow  naturally  in  Austria  on  the  lightest  sands).  A  specimen  here, 
grew  nearly  three  feet  last  season  ;  and  its  bold,  stiff  foliage,  is  suffi- 
ciently marked  to  arrest  the  attention  among  all  other  evergreens. 

The  Swiss  stone  pine  (Pinus  cembra)  we  find  also  perfectly 
hardy  in  this  latitude.  This  tree  produces  an  eatable  kernel,  and 
though  of  comparatively  slow  growth,  is  certainly  one  of  the  most 
interesting  of  the  pine  family.  The  Italian  stone  pine,  and  the  pinas- 
ter, are  also  beautiful  trees  for  the  climate  of  Philadelphia.  The 
grand  and  lofty  pines  of  California,  the  largest  and  loftiest  evergreen 
trees  in  the  world,  are  not  yet  to  be  found,  except  as  small  specimens 
here  and  there  in  the  gardens  of  curious  collectors  in  the  United 
States.  But  we  hope,  with  our  continually  increasing  intercourse 
with  western  America,  fresh  seeds  will  be  procured  by  our  nursery- 
men, and  grown  abundantly  for  sale.  The  great  Californian  silver 
fir  (Picea  grandis)  grows  200  feet  high,  with  cones  6  inches  long, 
and  fine  silvery  foliage  ;  and  the  noble  silver  fir  (P.  nobilis)  is 
scarcely  less  striking.  "  I  spent  three  weeks,"  says  Douglass,  the 
botanical  traveller,  "  in  a  forest  composed  of  this  tree,  and,  day  by 
day,  could  not  cease  to  admire  it."  Both  these  fine  fir-trees  grow  in 
Northern  California,  where  they  cover  vast  tracts  of  land,  and,  along 
with  other  species  of  pine,  form  grand  and  majestic  features  in  the 
landscape  of  that  country.  The  English  have  been  before  us  in  in- 
troducing these  natives  of  our  western  shores ;  for  we  find  them, 
though  at  high  prices,  now  offered  for  sale  in  most  of  the  large 
nurseries  in  Great  Britain. 

The  most  beautiful  evergreen-tree  in  America,  and,  perhaps, — 


334  TREES. 

when  foliage,  flowers,  and  perfume  are  considered, — in  the  world,  is 
the  Magnolia  grandiflora  of  our  southern  States.  There,  where  it 
grows  in  the  deep  alluvial  soil  of  some  river  valley,  to  the  height  of 
*70  or  80  feet,  clothed  with  its  large,  thick,  deep  green,  glossy  leaves, 
like  those  of  a  gigantic  laurel,  covered  in  the  season  of  its  bloom 
with  large,  pure  white  blossoms,  that  perfume  the  whole  woods  about 
it  with  their  delicious  odor  ;  certainly,  it  presents  a  spectacle  of  un- 
rivalled sylvan  beauty.  Much  to  be  deplored  is  it,  that  north  of 
New- York  it  will  not  bear  the  rigor  of  the  winters,  and  that  we  are 
denied  the  pleasure  of  seeing  it  grow  freely  in  the  open  air.  At 
Philadelphia,  it  is  quite  hardy ;  and  in  the  Bartram  Garden,  at 
Landreth's,  and  in  various  private  grounds  near  that  city,  there  are 
fine  specimens  20  or  30  feet  high,  growing  without  protection  and 
blooming  every  year. 

Wherever  the  climate  will  permit  the  culture  of  this  superb 
evergreen,  the  ornamental  planter  would  be  unpardonable,  in  our 
eyes,  not  to  possess  it  in  considerable  abundance.  There  is  a  variety 
of  it,  originated  from  seed  by  the  English,  called  the  Exmouth  Mag- 
nolia (M.  g.  exominsis),  which  is  rather  hardier,  and  a  much  more 
abundant  bloomer  than  the  original  species. 


VIII 

THE  CHINESE  MAGNOLIAS. 

January,  1850. 

NATURE  has  bestowed  that  superb  genus  of  trees,  the  magnolia, 
on  the  eastern  sides  of  the  two  great  continents — North  Amer- 
ica and  Asia.  The  United  States  gives  us  eight  of  all  the  known 
species,  and  China  and  Japan  four  or  five.  Neither  Europe,  Africa, 
nor  South  America  afford  a  single  indigenous  species  of  magnolia. 

All  the  Chinese  magnolias,  excepting  one  {M.  fuscata),  are 
hardy  in  this  latitude,  and  are  certainly  among  the  most  striking 
and  ornamental  objects  in  our  pleasure-grounds  and  shrubberies  in 
the  spring.  Indeed,  during  the  month  of  April,  and  the  early  part 
of  May,  two  of  them,  the  white  or  consjricua,  and  Soulange's  purple 
or  soidangiana,  eclipse  every  other  floral  object,  whether  tree  or 
shrub,  that  the  garden  contains.  Their  numerous  branches,  thickly 
studded  with  large  flowers,  most  classically  shaped,  with  thick  kid- 
like petals,  and  rich  spicy  odor,  wear  an  aspect  of  great  novelty  and 
beauty  among  the  smaller  blossoms  of  the  more  common  trees  and 
shrubs  that  blossom  at  that  early  time,  and  really  fill  the  beholdei 
with  delight. 

The  Chinese  white  magnolia  (M.  conspicua)  is,  in  the  effect  of 
its  blossoms,  the  most  charming  of  all  magnolias.  The  flowers,  in 
color  a  pure  creamy  white,  are  produced  in  such  abundance,  that 
the  tree,  when  pretty  large,  may  be  seen  a  great  distance.  The 
Chinese  name,  Gulan,  literally  lily-tree,  is  an  apt  and  expressive 
one,  as  the  blossoms  are  not  much  unlike  those  of  the  white  lily  in 
size  and  shape,  when  fully  expanded.  Among  the  Chinese  poets, 
they  are  considered  the  emblem  of  candor  and  beauty. 


336 


TREES. 


The  engraving  is  a  very  correct  portrait  of  a  fine  specimen  of 
this  tree,  standing  on  the  lawn  in  front  of  our  house,  as  it  appears 
now,  April  25  th.  Its  usual  period  of  blooming  here  is  from  the  5th 
to  the  15th  of  this  month.    Last  year  there  were  three  thousand 


Portrait  of  the  Chinese  White  Magnolia  in  Mr.  Downing's  Grounds. 


blossoms  open  upon  it  at  once.  The  tree  has  been  planted  about 
fourteen  years,  and  is  now  twenty  feet  high.  The  branches  spread 
over  a  space  of  fifteen  feet  in  diameter,  and  the  stem,  near  the 
ground,  is  eight  inches  in  diameter.  Its  growth  is  highly  sym- 
metrical. For  the  last  ten  years  it  has  never,  in  a  single  season, 
failed  to  produce  a  fine  display  of  blossoms,  which  are  usually  fol- 
lowed by  a  few  seeds.    Last  year,  however,  it  gave  us  quite  a  crop 


THE  CHINESE  MAGNOLIAS. 


337 


of  large  and  fine  seeds,  from  which  we  hope  to  raise  many 
plants.* 

This  tree  is  perfectly  hardy  in  this  latitude,  and  we  have  never 
known  one  of  its  flower  buds  (which  are  quite  large  in  autumn),  or 
an  inch  of  its  wood,  to  be  killed  by  the  most  severe  winter.  It  is, 
however,  grafted  about  a  foot  from  the  ground,  on  a  stock  of  our 
western  magnolia — sometimes  called  in  Ohio  the  "  cucumber-tree  " 
(M.  acuminata).  This  perhaps  renders  it  a  little  more  hardy,  and 
rather  more  vigorous  than  when  grown  on  its  own  root — as  this 
native  sort  is  the  very  best  stock  for  all  the  Chinese  sorts.  It  is  so  pro- 
pagated by  budding  in  August ;  and  no  doubt  the  spring  budding 
recommended  by  Mr.  Nelson,  would  be  a  highly  successful  mode. 

The  next  most  ornamental  Chinese  magnolia,  is  Soulange's  pur- 
ple (M.  soulangiana).  This  is  a  hybrid  seedling,  raised  by  the  late 
Chevalier  Soulange  Bodin,  the  distinguished  French  horticulturist. 
The  habit  of  the  tree  is  closely  similar  to  that  of  the  conspicua  ;  its 
blossoms,  equally  numerous,  are  rather  larger,  but  the  outside  of  the 
petals  is  finely  tinged  with  purple.  It  partakes  of  the  character  of 
both  its  parents — having  the  growth  of  magnolia  conspicua,  and 
the  color  of  magnolia  purpurea  (or  indeed  a  lighter  shade  of  purple). 
Its  term  of  blooming  is  also  midway  between  that  of  these  two  spe- 
cies, being  about  a  week  later  than  that  of  the  white  or  Oulan 
magnolia.  It  is  also  perfectly  hardy  in  this  latitude.  The  purple 
Chinese  magnolia  [31.  purpurea)  is  a  much  dwarfer  tree  than  the 
two  preceding  species.  Indeed,  it  is  properly  a  shrub,  some  six  or 
eight  feet  in  its  growth  in  this  latitude.  Grafted  on  the  "  cucumber- 
tree,"  it  would  no  doubt  be  more  vigorous,  and  perhaps  more  hardy, 
for  it  is  occasionally  liable  to  have  the  ends  of  its  branches  slightly 
injured  by  severe  winters  here.  Its  flowers  begin  to  open  early  in 
May,  and  on  an  old  plant  they  continue  blooming  for  six  weeks,  and 
indeed  in  a  shaded  situation,  often  for  a  considerable  part  of  the 
summer.  These  blossoms  are  white  within,  of  a  fine  dark  lilac  or 
purple  on  the  outside,  and  quite  fragrant  like  the  others.  This  is 
the  oldest  Chinese  magnolia  known  here,  having  been  brought  from 

*  There  is,  we  learn,  a  fine  large  specimen  of  this  tree  in  the  garden  of 
Mr.  William  Davidson,  Brooklyn,  N.  Y. 

22  i 


338 


TREES. 


China  to  Europe  in  1790 — and  it  is  now  quite  frequently  seen  m 
our  gardens. 

There  is  another  species  (M.  gracilis),  the  slender-growing  mag- 
nolia, which  very  nearly  resembles  the  purple  flowering  magnolia — 
and  indeed  only  differs  from  it  in  its  more  slender  growth,  and  nar- 
rower leaves  and  petals. 

If  these  noble  flowering  trees  have  a  defect,  it  is  one  which  is 
inseparable  from  the  early  period  at  which  they  bloom,  viz.,  that  of 
having  few  or  no  leaves  when  the  blossoms  are  in  their  full  perfec- 
tion. To  remedy  this,  a  very  obvious  mode  is  to  plant  them  with 
evergreen  trees,  so  that  the  latter  may  form  a  dark  green  back- 
ground for  the  large  and  beautiful  masses  of  magnolia  flowers. 
The  American  arbor  vitse,  and  hemlock,  seem  to  us  best  fitted  for 
this  purpose.  To  those  of  our  readers  who  do  not  already  possess 
the  Chinese  magnolia,  and  more  especially  the  two  first  named  sorts, 
it  is  impossible  to  recommend  two  trees,  that  may  now  be  had  at 
most  of  our  large  nurseries,  which  are  in  every  respect  so  ornamen- 
tal in  their  symmetrical  growth,  rich  blossoms,  and  fine  summer 
foliage,  as  the  Chinese  magnolias. 


IX. 

THE  NEGLECTED  AMERICAN  PLANTS. 

May,  1851. 

IT  is  an  old  and  familiar  saying  that  a  prophet  is  npt  without 
honor,  except  in  his  own  country,  and  as  we  were  making  our 
way  this  spring  through  a  dense  forest  in  the  State  of  New  Jersey, 
we  were  tempted  to  apply  this  saying  to  things  as  well  as  people. 
How  many  grand  and  stately  trees  there  are  in  our  woodlands,  that 
are  never  heeded  by  the  arboriculturist  in  planting  his  lawns  and 
pleasure-grounds ;  how  many  rich  and  beautiful  shrubs,  that  might 
embellish  our  walks  and  add  variety  to  our  shrubberies,  that  are 
left  to  wave  on  the  mountain  crag,  or  overhang  the  steep  side  of 
some  forest  valley  ;  how  many  rare  and  curious  flowers  that  bloom 
unseen  amid  the  depths  of  silent  woods,  or  along  tbe  margin  of 
wild  water-courses.  Yes,  our  hot-houses  are  full  of  the  heaths  of 
New  Holland  and  the  Cape,  our  parterres  are  gay  with  the  ver- 
benas and  fuchsias  of  South  America,  our  pleasure-grounds  are 
studded  with  the  trees  of  Europe  and  Northern  Asia,  while  the 
rarest  spectacle  in  an  American  country  place,  is  to  see  above  three 
or  four  native  trees,  rarer  still  to  find  any  but  foreign  shrubs,  and 
rarest  of  all,  to  find  any  of  our  native  wild  flowers. 

Nothing  strikes  foreign  horticulturists  and  amateurs  so  much, 
as  this  apathy  and  indifference  of  Americans,  to  the  beautiful  sylvan 
and  floral  products  of  their  own  country.  An  enthusiastic  collector 
in  Belgium  first  made  us  keenly  sensible  of  this  condition  of  our 
countrymen,  but  Summer,  in  describing  the  difficulty  he  had  in 
,  procuring  from  any  of  his  correspondents,  here,  American  seeds  or 


340 


TREES. 


plants — even  of  well  known  and  tolerably  abundant  species,  by  tell- 
ing us  that  amateurs  and  nurserymen  who  annually  import  from 
him  every  new  and  rare  exotic  that  the  richest  collections  of  Europe 
possessed,  could  scarcely  be  prevailed  upon  to  make  a  search  for 
native  American  plants,  far  more  beautiful,  which  grow  in  the  woods 
not  ten  miles  from  their  own  doors.  Some  of  them  were  wholly 
ignorant  of  such  plants,  except  so  far  as  a  familiarity  with  their 
names  in  the  books  may  be  called  an  acquaintance.  Others  knew 
them,  but  considered  them  "  wild  plants,"  and  therefore,  too  little 
deserving  of  attention  to  be  worth  the  trouble  of  collecting,  even  for 
curious  foreigners.  "  And  so,"  he  continued,  "  in  a  country  of  azaleas, 
kalmias,  rhododendrons,  cypripediums,  magnolias  and  nysas, — 
the  loveliest  flowers,  shrubs,  and  trees  of  temperate  climates, — you 
never  put  them  in  your  gardens,  but  send  over  the  water  every  year 
for  thousands  of  dollars  worth  of  English  larches  and  Dutch  hya- 
cinths.   Voila  le  gout  Republkain  !  " 

In  truth,  we  felt  that  we  quite  deserved  the  sweeping  sarcasm  of 
our  Belgian  friend.  We  had  always,  indeed,  excused  ourselves  for 
the  well  known  neglect  of  the  riches  of  our  native  Flora,  by  saying 
that  what  we  can  see  any  day  in  the  woods,  is  not  the  thing  by 
which  to  make  a  garden  distinguished — and  that  since  all  mankind 
have  a  passion  for  novelty,  where,  as  in  a  fine  foreign  tree  or  shrub, 
both  beauty  and  novelty  are  combined,  so  much  the  greater  is  the 
pleasure  experienced.  But,  indeed,  one  has  only  to  go  to  England, 
where  "  American  plants "  are  the  fashion,  (not  undeservedly,  too,) 
to  learn  that  he  knows  very  little  about  the  beauty  of  American 
plants.  The  difference  between  a  grand  oak  or  magnolia,  or  tulip- 
tree,  grown  with  all  its  graceful  and  majestic  development  of  head, 
in  a  park  where  it  has  nothing  to  interfere  with  its  expansion  but 
sky  and  air,  and  the  same  tree  shut  up  in  a  forest,  a  quarter  of  a 
mile  high,  with  only  a  tall  gigantic  mast  of  a  stem,  and  a  tuft  of 
foliage  at  the  top,  is  the  difference  between  the  best  bred  and  highly 
cultivated  man  of  the  day,  and  the  best  buffalo  hunter  of  the  Rocky 
Mountains,  with  his  sinewy  body  tattooed  and  tanned  till  you  scarcely 
know  what  is  the  natural  color  of  the  skin.  A  person  accustomed 
to  the  wild  Indian  only,  might  think  he  knew  perfectly  well  what  a 
man  is — and  so  indeed  he  does,  if  you  mean  a  red  man.    But  the. 


THE  NEGLECTED  AMERICAN  PLANTb. 


341 


"  civilizee"  is  not  more  different  from  the  aboriginal  man  of  the 
forest,  than  the  cultivated  and  perfect  garden-tree  or  shrub  (grant- 
ing always  that  it  takes  to  civilization — which  some  trees,  like  In- 
dians, do  not),  than  a  tree  of  the  pleasure-grounds  differs  from  a 
tree  of  the  woods. 

Perhaps  the  finest  revelation  of  this  sort  in  England,  is  the 
clumps  and  masses  of  our  mountain  laurel,  Kalmia  latifolia,  and 
our  azaleas  and  rhododendrons,  which  embellish  the  English  plea- 
sure-grounds. In  some  of  the  great  country-seats,  whole  acres  of 
lawn,  kept  like  velvet,  are  made  the  ground-work  upon  which  these 
masses  of  the  richest  foliaged  and  the  gayest  flowering  shrubs  are 
embroidered.  Each  mass  is  planted  in  a  round  or  oval  bed  of  deep, 
rich,  sandy  mould,  in  which  it  attains  a  luxuriance  and  perfection 
of  form  and  foliage,  almost  as  new  to  an  American  as  to  a  Sand- 
wich Islander.  The  Germans  make  avenues  of  our  tulip-trees,  and 
in  the  South  of  France,  one  finds  more  planted  magnolias  in  the 
gardens,  than  there  are,  out  of  the  woods,  in  all  the  United  States. 
It  is  thus,  by  seeing  them  away  from  home,  where  their  merits  are 
better  appreciated,  and  more  highly  developed,  that  one  learns  for 
the  first  time  what  our  gardens  have  lost,  by  our  having  none  of 
these  "  American  plants  "  in  them. 

The  subject  is  one  which  should  be  pursued  to  much  greater 
length  than  we  are  able  to  follow  it  in  the  present  article.  Our 
woods  and  swamps  are  full  of  the  most  exquisite  plants,  some  of 
which  would  greatly  embellish  even  the  smallest  garden.  But  it  is 
rather  to  one  single  feature  in  the  pleasure-grounds,  that  we  would 
at  this  moment  direct  the  attention,  and  that  is,  the  introduction  of 
two  broad-leaved  evergreen  shrubs,  that  are  abundant  in  every  part 
of  the  middle  States,  and  that  are,  nevertheless,  seldom  to  be  seen 
in  any  of  our  gardens  or  nurseries,  from  one  end  of  the  country  to 
the  other.  The  defect  is  the  more  to  be  deplored,  because  our  orna- 
mental plantations,  so  far  as  they  are  evergreen,  consist  almost  en- 
tirely of  pines  and  firs — all  narrow-leaved  evergreens — far  inferior 
in  richness  of  foliage,  to  those  we  have  mentioned. 

The  Native  Holly  grows  from  Long  Island  to  Florida,  and  is 
quite  abundant  in  the  woods  of  New  Jersey,  Maryland,  and  Vir- 
ginia.   It  forms  a  shrub  or  small  tree,  varying  from  four  to  forty 


342 


TREES. 


feet  in  height — clothed  with  foliage  and  berries  of  the  same  orna- 
mental character  as  the  European  holly — except  that  the  leaf  is  a 
shade  lighter  in  its  green.  The  plant  too,  is  perfectly  hardy,  even 
in  the  climate  of  Boston — while  the  European  holly  is  quite  too 
tender  for  open  air  culture  in  the  middle  States — notwithstanding 
that  peaches  ripen  here  in  orchards,  and  in  England  only  on  walls. 

The  American  Laurel,  or  Kalmia,  is  too  well  known  in  all  parts 
of  the  country  to  need  any  description.  And  what  new  shrub,  we 
would  ask,  is  there — whether  from  the  Himmalayas  or  the  Andes, 
whether  hardy  or  tender — which  surpasses  the  American  laurel, 
when  in  perfection,  as  to  the  richness  of  its  dark  green  foliage,  or 
the  exquisite  delicacy  and  beauty  of  its  gay  masses  of  flowers  ?  If 
it  came  from  the  highlands  of  Chili,  and  were  recently  introduced, 
it  would  bring  a  guinea  a  plant,  and  no  grumbling ! 

Granting  all  this,  let  our  readers  who  wish  to  decorate  their 
grounds  with  something  new  and  beautiful,  undertake  now,  in  this 
month  of  May  (for  these  plants  are  best  transplanted  after  they  have 
commenced  a  new  growth),  to  plant  some  laurels  and  hollies.  If 
they  would  do  this  quite  successfully,  they  must  not  stick  them  here 
and  there  among  other  shrubs  in  the  common  border — but  prepare 
a  bed  or  clump,  in  some  cool,  rather  shaded  aspect — a  north  slope 
is  better  than  a  southern  one — where  the  subsoil  is  rather  damp 
than  dry.  The  soil  should  be  sandy  or  gravelly,  with  a  mixture  of 
black  earth  well  decomposed,  or  a  cart-load  or  two  of  rotten  leaves 
from  an  old  wood,  and  it  should  be  at  least  eighteen  or  twenty 
inches  deep,  to  retain  the  moisture  in  a  long  drought.  A  bed  of 
these  fine  evergreens,  made  in  this  way,  will  be  a  feature  in  the 
grounds,  which,  after  it  has  been  well  established  for  a  few  years,  will 
convince  you  far  better  than  any  words  of  ours,  of  the  neglected 
beauty  of  our  American  plants. 


X. 


THE  ART  OF  TRANSPLANTING  TREES. 

November,  1848. 

WE  must  have  a  little  familiar  conversation,  this  month,  on  the 
subject  of  transplanting  trees.  Our  remarks  will  be  in- 
tended, of  course,  for  the  uninitiated ;  not  for  those  who  have  grown 
wise  with  experience. 

That  there  is  a  difficulty  in  transplanting  trees,  the  multitude 
of  complaints  and  inquiries  which  beset  us,  most  abundantly 
prove.  That  it  is,  on  the  other  hand,  a  very  easy  and  simple  pro- 
cess, the  uniform  success  of  skilful  cultivators,  as  fully  establishes. 

The  difficulty  then,  lies,  of  course,  in  a  want  of  knowledge,  on 
the  part  of  the  unsuccessful  practitioner.  This  want  of  knowledge 
may  be  stated,  broadly,  under  two  heads,  viz.,  ignorance  of  the 
organization  of  trees,  and  ignorance  of  the  necessity  of  feeding 
them. 

The  first  point  is  directly  the  most  important,  for  the  very  pro- 
cess of  transplanting  is  founded  upon  it.  Since  this  art  virtually 
consists  in  removing,  by  violence,  a  tree  from  one  spot  to  another, 
it  is  absolutely  necessary  to  know  how  much  violence  we  may  use 
without  defeating  the  ends  in  view.  A  common  soldier  will,  with 
his  sword,  cut  off  a  man's  limb,  in  such  a  manner  that  he  takes  his 
life  away  with  it.  A  skilful  surgeon,  will  do  the  same  thing,  in  or- 
der to  preserve  life.  There  are,  also,  manifestly  two  ways  of  trans- 
planting trees. 

That  the  vital  principle  is  a  wonderful  and  mysterious  power, 
even  in  plants,  cannot  be  denied.    But  because  certain  trees,  as 


344 


TKEE8. 


poplars  and  willows,  have  enough  of  this  power  to  enable  pieces  of 
them  to  grow,  when  stuck  into  the  ground,  like  walking  sticks, 
without  roots,  it  does  not  follow  that  all  other  trees  will  do  the 
same.  There  are  some  animals  which  swallow  prussic  acid  with 
impunity  ;  but  it  is  a  dangerous  experiment  for  all  other  animals. 
What  we  mean  to  suggest,  therefore,  is,  that  he  who  would  be  a 
successful  transplanter,  must  have  an  almost  religious  respect  for  the 
roots  of  trees.  He  must  look  upon  them  as  the  collectors  of  rev- 
enue, the  wardens  of  the  ports,  the  great  viaducts  of  all  solids  and 
fluids  that  enter  into  the  system  of  growth  and  verdure,  which  con- 
stitute the  tree  proper.  Oh,  if  one  could  only  teach  hewers  of 
"  tap-roots"  and  drawers  of  "  laterals,"  the  value  of  the  whole  system 
of  roots, — every  thing,  in  short,  that  looks  like,  and  is,  a  mdicle, — 
then  would  nine  tenths  of  the  difficulty  of  transplanting  be  quite 
overcome,  and  the  branches  might  be  left  pretty  much  to  them- 
selves ! 

Now  a  tree,  to  be  perfectly  transplanted,  ought  to  be  taken  up 
with  its  whole  system  of  roots  entire.  Thus  removed  and  carefully 
replanted,  at  the  proper  dormant  season,  it  need  not  suffer  a  loss  of 
the  smallest  bough,  and  it  would  scarcely  feel  its  removal.  Such 
things  are  done  every  year,  with  this  result,  by  really  clever  and  ex- 
perienced gardeners.  "We  have  seen  apple-trees,  large  enough  to 
bear  a  couple  of  bushels  of  fruit,  which  were  removed  a  dozen  miles, 
in  the  autumn,  and  made  a  luxuriant  growth,  and  bore  a  fine  crop 
the  next  season.  But  the  workman  who  handled  them  had  gone 
to  the  root  of  the  business  he  undertook. 

The  fact,  however,  cannot  be  denied,  that  in  common  practice 
there  are  very  few  such  perfect  workmen.  Trees  (especially  in  the 
nurseries)  are  often  taken  up  in  haste,  at  a  loss  of  a  third,  or  even 
sometimes  half  of  their  roots,  and  when  received  by  the  transplanter, 
there  is  nothing  to  be  done  but  to  make  the  best  of  it. 

In  order  to  do  this,  we  must  look  a  little  in  advance,  in  order  to 
understand  the  philosophy  of  growth.  In  a  few  words,  then,  it 
may  be  assumed  that  in  a  healthy  tree,  there  is  an  exact  "  balance 
of  power  "  between  the  roots  and  the  branches.  The  first  may  be 
said  to  represent  the  stomach,  and  the  second  the  lungs  and  per- 
spiratory system.    The  first  collects  food  for  the  tree;  the  other 


THE  ART  OF  TRANSPLANTING  TREES. 


345 


elaborates  and  prepares  this  food.  You  can,  therefore,  no  more 
make  a  violent  attack  upon  the  roots,  without  the  leaves  and 
branches  suffering  harm  by  it,  than  you  can  greatly  injure  the 
stomach  of  an  animal  without  disturbing  the  vital  action  of  all  the 
rest  of  its  system. 

In  trees  and  plants,  perhaps,  this  proportional  dependence  is 
still  greater.  For  instance,  the  leaves,  and  even  the  bark  of  a  tree, 
continually  act  as  the  perspiratory  system  of  that  tree.  Every  clear 
day,  in  a  good  sized  tree,  they  give  off  many  pounds  weight  of 
fluid  matter, — being  the  more  watery  portion  of  the  element  ab- 
sorbed by  the  roots.  Now  it  is  plain,  that  if  you  destroy,  in  trans- 
planting, one-third  of  the  roots  of  a  tree,  you  have,  as  soon  as  the 
leaves  expand,  a  third  more  lungs  than  you  can  keep  in  action.  The 
perspiration  is  vastly  beyond  what  the  roots  can  make  good ;  and 
unless  the  subject  is  one  of  unusual  vitality,  or  the  weather  is  such 
as  to  keep  down  perspiration  by  constant  dampness,  the  leaves  must 
flag,  and  the  tree  partly  or  wholly  perish. 

The  remedy,  in  cases  where  you  must  plant  a  tree  whose  roots 
have  been  mutilated,  is  (after  carefully  paring  off  the  ends  of  the 
wounded  roots,  to  enable  them  to  heal  more  speedily)  to  restore  the 
"  balance  of  power  "  by  bringing  down  the  perspiratory  system — in 
other  words,  the  branches,  to  a  corresponding  state ;  that  is  to  say, 
in  theory,  if  your  tree  has  lost  a  fourth  of  its  roots,  take  off  an 
equal  amount  of  its  branches. 

This  is  the  correct  theory.  The  practice,  however,  differs  with 
the  climate  where  the  transplanting  takes  place.  This  is  evident,  if 
we  remember  that  the  perspiration  is  governed  by  the  amount  of  sun- 
shine and  dry  air.  The  more  of  these,  the  greater  the  demand 
made  for  moisture,  on  the  roots.  Hence,  the  reason  why  delicate 
cuttings  strike  root  readily  under  a  bell  glass,  and  why  transplanting 
is  as  easy  as  sleeping  in  rainy  weather.  In  England,  therefore,  it  is 
much  easier  to  transplant  large  trees  than  on  the  continent,  or  in 
this  country ;  so  easy,  that  Sir  Henry  Stewart  made  parks  of  fifty 
feet  trees  with  his  transplanting  machine,  almost  as  easily  and  as 
quickly  as  Capt.  Bragg  makes  a  park  of  artillery.  But  he  who 
tries  this  sort  of  fancy  work  in  the  bright  sunshine  of  the  United 
States,  will  find  that  it  is  like  undertaking  to  besiege  Gibraltar  with 


346 


TREES. 


cross-bows.  The  trees  start  into  leaf,  and  all  promises  well ;  but 
unless  under  very  favorable  circumstances,  the  leaves  beggar  the 
roots,  by  their  demands  for  more  sap,  before  August  is  half  over. 

"We  mean  to  be  understood,  therefore,  that  we  think  it  safest  in 
practice,  in  this  part  of  the  world,  when  you  are  about  to  plant  a 
tree  deprived  of  part  of  its  roots,  to  reduce  the  branches  a  little 
beloiv  this  same  proportion.  To  reduce  them  to  precisely  an  equal 
proportion,  would  preserve  the  balance,  if  the  ground  about  the 
roots  could  be  kept  uniformly  moist.  But,  with  the  chances  of  its 
becoming  partially  dry  at  times,  you  must  guard  against  the  leaves 
flagging,  by  diminishing  their  number  at  the  first  start.  As  every 
leaf  and  branch,  made  after  groivth  fairly  commences,  will  be  accom- 
panied simultaneously  by  new  roots,  the  same  will  then  be  provided 
for  as  a  matter  of  course. 

The  neatest  way  of  reducing  the  top  of  a  tree,  in  order  not  to 
destroy  its  natural  symmetry,*  is  to  shorten-back  the  young  growth 
of  the  previous  season.  We  know  a  most  successful  planter  who 
always,  under  all  circumstances,  shortens-back  the  previous  year's 
wood,  on  transplanting,  to  one  bud ;  that  is,  he  cuts  off  the  whole 
summer's  growth  down  to  a  good  plump  bud,  just  above  the  pre- 
vious year's  wood.  But  this  is  not  always  necessary.  A  few  inches 
(where  the  growth  has  been  a  foot  or  more)  will  usually  be  all  that 
is  necessary.  It  is  only  necessary  to  watch  the  growth  of  a  trans- 
planted tree,  treated  in  this  way,  with  one  of  the  same  kind  un- 
pruned;  to  compare  the  clean,  vigorous  new  shoots,  that  will  be 
made  the  first  season  by  the  former,  with  the  slender  and  feeble 
ones  of  the  latter,  to  be  perfectly  convinced  of  the  value  of  the 
practice  of  shortening-in  transplanted  trees. 

The  necessity  of  a  proper  supply  of  food  for  trees,  is  a  point 
that  we  should  not  have  to  insist  upon,  if  starving  trees  had  the 
power  of  crying  out,  like  starving  pigs.  Unluckily,  they  have  not ; 
and,  therefore,  inhuman  and  ignorant  cultivators  will  feed  their 
cattle,  and  let  their  orchards  starve  to  death.  Now  it  is  perfectly 
demonstrable,  to  a  man  who  has  the  use  of  his  eyes,  that  a  tree  can 

*  Cutting  off  large  branches  at  random,  often  quite  spoils  the  natural 
habit  of  a  tree.  Shortening-back,  all  over  the  head,  does  not  affect  it  in  the 
least. 


THE  ART  OF  TRANSPLANTING  TREES. 


347 


be  fatted  to  repletion,  that  it  may  be  made  to  grow  thriftily  and 
well,  or  that  it  may  be  absolutely  starved  to  death,  as  certainly  as 
a  Berkshire.  It  is  not  enough  (unless  a  man  has  rich  bottom 
lands)  to  plant  a  tree  in  order  to  have  a  satisfactory  growth,  and  a 
speedy  gratification  in  its  fruit  and  foliage.  You  must  provide  a 
supply  of  food  for  it  at  the  outset,  and  renew  it  as  often  as  necessary 
during  its  lifetime.  He  who  does  this,  will  have  five  times  the 
profit  and  ten  times  the  satisfaction  of  the  careless  and  sluggish 
man,  who  grudges  the  labor  and  expense  of  a  little  extra  feeding 
for  the  roots.  The  cheapest  and  best  food  for  fruit  trees,  with  most 
farmers,  is  a  mixture  of  swamp  muck  and  stable  manure,  which  has 
laid  for  some  two  or  tbree  months  together.  The  best  manure, 
perhaps,  is  the  same  muck,  or  black  peat,  reduced  to  an  active  state 
with  wood  ashes.  A  wheelbarrow  load  of  this  compost,  mixed  with 
the  soil,  for  each  small  transplanted  tree,  will  give  it  a  supply  of 
food  that  will  produce  a  growth  of  leaf  and  young  wood  that  will 
do  one's  heart  good  to  look  upon. 

Any  well  decomposed  animal  manure  may  be  freely  used  in 
planting  trees  ;  always  thoroughly  incorporating  it  with  the  whole 
of  the  soil  that  has  been  stirred,  and  not  throwing  it  directly  about 
the  roots. 

There  are,  however,  some  improvident  men  who  will  plant  trees 
without  having  any  food  at  hand,  except  manure  in  a  crude  state. 
"  What  shall  we  do,"  they  ask,  "  when  we  have  only  fresh  stable 
manure  ?"  Perhaps  we  ought  to  answer — "  wait  till  you  have  some- 
thing better."  But  since  they  will  do  something  at  once,  or  not  at 
all,  we  must  give  them  a  reply  ;  and  this  is,  make  your  hole  twice 
as  large  and  twice  as  deep  as  you  would  if  you  had  suitable  com- 
post. Then  bury  part  of  the  fresh  manure  below  the  depth  where 
the  roots  will  at  first  be,  mixing  it  with  the  soil,  treading  the  whole 
down  well  to  prevent  settling,  and  covering  the  whole  with  three 
inches  of  earth,  upon  which  to  plant  the  tree.  Mix  the  rest  with 
the  soil,  and  put  it  at  the  sides  of  the  hole,  keeping  the  manure 
both  at  the  sides  and  bottom,  far  enough  away,  that  the  roots  of  the 
tree  shall  not  reach  it  for  two  months.  Then  plant  the  tree  in  some 
of  the  best  good  soil  you  can  procure. 

One  of  the  safest  and  best  general  fertilizers  that  can  be  used  in 


348 


TREES. 


transplanting  at  all  times,  and  in  all  soils,  is  leached  wood  ashes.  A 
couple  of  shovelfuls  of  this  may  he  used  (intermixed  with  soil) 
about  the  roots  of  every  tree,  while  replanting  it,  with  great  advan- 
tage. Lime  and  potash,  the  two  largest  inorganic  constituents  of 
all  trees,  are  most  abundantly  supplied  by  wood  ashes  ;  and  hence 
its  utility  in  all  our  soils. 

We  have,  previously,  so  largely  insisted  on  the  importance  of 
trenching  and  deepening  the  soil,  in  all  cases  where  trees  are  to  be 
planted,  that  we  trust  our  readers  know  that  that  is  our  platform. 
If  any  man  wishes  to  know  how  to  improve  the  growth  of  any  tree 
in  the  climate  of  the  United  States,  the  first  word  that  we  have  to 
say  to  him,  is  to  "  trench  your  soil."  If  your  soil  is  exhausted,  if 
your  soil  is  thin  and  poor,  if  it  is  dry,  and  you  suffer  from  drought, 
the  remedy  is  the  same  ;  deepen  it.  If  you  have  much  to  do,  and 
economy  must  be  considered,  use  the  subsoil  plough ;  if  a  few  trees 
only  are  to  be  planted  in  the  lawn  or  garden,  use  the  sjDade.  Always 
remember  that  the  roots  of  trees  will  rarely  go  deeper  than  the 
"  natural  soil,"  (say  from  10  to  20  inches  on  the  average,)  and  that 
by  trenching  two  or  three  feet  deep  you  make  a  double  soil,  and 
therefore  enlarge  your  "  area  of  freedom  "  for  the  roots,  and  give  them 
twice  as  much  to  feed  upon.  If  you  are  a  beginner,  and  are  skepti- 
cal, make  a  trial  of  a  few  square  yards,  plant  a  tree  in  it,  and  then 
judge  for  yoursel£ 


XL 


ON  TRANSPLANTING  LARGE  TREES. 

January,  1850. 

IN  a  country  where  thousands  of  new  rural  homes  are  eveiy  year 
being  made,  how  many  times  do  the  new  proprietors  sigh  for 
large  trees.  "  Ah,  if  one  could  only  have  half  a  dozen, — two  or 
three, — nay,  even  a  single  one  of  the  beautiful  elms  that  waste  their 
beauty  by  the  roadside  of  some  unfrequented  lane,  or  stands  unap- 
preciated in  some  farmer's  meadow,  who  grudges  it  ground  room  ! " 

"  And  is  there  no  successful  way  of  transplanting  such  trees  ? " 
inquires  the  impatient  owner  of  a  new  site,  who  feels  that  there 
should  be  some  special  process — some  patent  regenerator  of  that 
forest  growth,  which  his  predecessors  have  so  cruelly  despoiled, — his 
predecessors,  to  whom  cord-wood  was  of  more  consequence  than  the 
charms  of  sylvan  landscape. 

Though  there  is  great  delight  in  raising  a  tree  from  a  liliputian 
specimen  no  higher  than  one's  knee, — nay,  even  from  the  seed 
itself, — in  feeling,  as  it  grows  upward  and  heavenward,  year  by  year, 
till  the  little  thing  that  had  to  be  sheltered  with  rods,  stuck  about  it, 
to  prevent  its  being  overlooked  and  trodden  upon,  has  so  far  over- 
topped us  that  it  now  shelters  and  gratefully  overshadows  us ;  though, 
as  we  have  said,  there  is  great  delight  in  this,  yet  it  must  be  part 
and  parcel  of  other  delights.  To  a  person  who  has  just  "settled" 
upon  a  bare  field,  where  he  has  only  a  new  house  and  a  "  view  "  of 
his  neighborhood  to  look  at,  we  must  not  be  too  eloquent  about  the 
pleasure  of  raising  oaks  from  the  acorn.  He  is  too  much  in  the 
condition  of  the  hungry  man,  who  is  told  to  be  resigned,  for  there 


350 


TREES. 


will  be  no  hunger  in  heaven.  It  is  the  present  state  of  affairs  that, 
at  this  moment,  lies  nearest  to  him.  How,  in  other  words,  shall  a 
field,  as  bare  as  a  desert,  be  at  once  enlivened  with  a  few  large  trees? 

Some  ten  or  fifteen  years  ago,  an  ingenious  Scotch  baronet — 
Sir  Henry  Stuart — published  a  goodly  octavo  to  the  world,  which 
apparently  solved  the  whole  mysteiy.  And  it  was  not  all  theory  ; 
for  the  baronet's  own  park  was  actually  planted  with  forest  trees  of 
various  kinds — oaks,  ashes,  elms,  beeches,  of  all  sizes,  from  twenty- 
five  to  sixty  feet  in  height,  and  with  fine  heads.  The  thing  was  not 
only  done,  but  the  park  was  there,  growing  in  the  finest  luxuriance ; 
and  half  a  dozen  years  after  its  creation,  arboriculturists  of  every 
degree,  from  Sir  Walter  Scott  down  to  humble  ditchers,  went  to 
look  at  it,  and  pronounced  it  good,  and  the  thing  itself  altogether 
satisfactory. 

Sir  Henry  Stuart's  process,  though  it  fills  a  volume,  may  be  com- 
pressed into  a  paragraph.  First,  the  greatest  respect  for  the  roots  of 
a  tree,  and  some  knowledge  of  the  functions  of  the  roots  and  branches ; 
second,  a  pair  of  large  wheels,  with  a  strong  axle  and  pole ;  third, 
practical  skill  and  patience  in  executing  the  work. 

A  great  many  disciples  had  Sir  Henry ;  and  we,  among  the 
number,  bore  our  share  in  the  purchase  of  a  pair  of  wheels,  and  the 
cost  of  moving  some  large  trees,  that  for  the  most  part  failed.  And 
now,  that  Sir  Henry's  mode  has  rather  fallen  into  disrepute,  and  is 
looked  upon  as  an  impracticable  thing  for  this  country,  it  may  be 
time  well  employed  to  look  a  little  into  the  cause  of  its  failure,  and 
also  to  inquire  if  it  is  wholly  and  entirely  a  failure  for  us. 

Undeniably,  then,  the  main  cause  of  the  failure,  here,  of  the 
Scotch  mode  of  transplanting,  lies  in  the  difference  of  climate.  He 
who  knows  how  much  the  success  of  a  newly  planted  tree,  of  small 
size,  depends  on  the  moist  state  of  the  atmosphere,  when  it  begins 
to  grow  in  its  new  position,  can  easily  see  that  its  importance  is 
vastly  greater  to  a  large  tree  than  a  small  one.  It  is  the  thirst  of  a 
giant  and  the  sufferings  of  a  giant,  accustomed  to  a  large  supply  of 
food,  compared  with  that  of  a  little  child,  which  may  be  fed  by  the 
spoonful.  And  when  we  compare  the  moisture  of  that  foggy  and 
weeping  climate  of  Scotia,  with  the  hot,  bright,  dry  atmosphere  of 
the  United  States,  we  can  easily  see  that  a  tree  at  all  stubborn, 


ON  TRANSPLANTING  LARGE  TREES. 


351 


moved  by  Sir  Henry  himself,  and  inclined  to  grow,  would  actually 
perish  from  the  dryness  of  the  air  in  mid-summer  in  our  middle 
States.  And  such  we  have  found  by  experiment  is  actually  the  case 
with  trees  of  many  kinds,  when  planted  of  large  size. 

We  say  of  many  kinds ;  for  repeated  experiment  has  proved  that 
a  few  kinds  of  hardy  native  trees  may  be  transplanted,  even  in  this 
climate,  with  entire  success  by  the  Stuart  method,  or  any  other  that 
will  sufficiently  preserve  the  entireness  of  the  roots. 

Fortunately,  the  two  kinds  of  trees  adapted  for  removal,  when 
of  large  size,  are  the  two  most  popular  and  most  valuable  for  orna- 
mental purposes.  We  mean  the  elms  and  the  maples.  Few  forest 
trees  have  more  dignity  and  grace ;  none  have  more  beauty  of  out- 
line than  our  weeping  elms  and  sugar  maples,  to  say  nothing  of  the 
other  varieties  of  both  these  trees.  And  if  the  possessor  of  a  new 
place  can  adorn  it  with  a  dozen  or  two  fine  specimens  of  these,  of  a 
size  to  give  immediate  shelter  and  effect  to  the  neighborhood  of  his 
house,  he  can  then  afford  to  be  patient,  and  enjoy  the  more  gradual 
process  of  coaxing  smaller  specimens  into  luxuriant  maturity. 

The  reason  why  oaks,  nut  trees,  chestnuts,  tulip  trees,  and  the 
like,  when  transplanted  of  large  size,  do  not  succeed  here,  where 
elms  and  maples  do,  is  that  the  former  unluckily  have  a  few  strong, 
or  tap-roots,  running  downwards,  while  the  latter  have  great  masses 
of  fibrous  roots,  running  near  the  surface  of  the  ground. 

Now  a  tap-rooted  tree,  even  when  small,  has  a  much  less  amia- 
ble disposition  when  dug  up,  and  asked  to  grow  again,  than  a  fibrous 
rooted  tree ;  because,  indeed,  having  fewer  small  roots,  it  has  only 
one  mouth  to  supply  its  hunger,  and  to  gain  strength  to  go  on 
again,  where  the  other  has  fifty.  Hence,  though  it  may,  under  very 
favorable  circumstances,  like  the  climate  of  Scotland,  overcome  all 
and  succeed,  yet  it  is  nearly  a  death  struggle  to  do  so  in  our  dry 
midsummer  air.*  It  is  not  worth  while  to  waste  one's  time,  there- 
fore, in  transplanting  large  oaks,  or  hickories,  in  this  hemisphere. 

And  now,  having  reduced  our  class  of  available  subjects  to  elms 

*  "We  have  found  that  large  oaks,  when  transplanted,  frequently  live 
through  the  first  year,  but  die  the  second,  from  their  inability  to  contend 
against  the  climate  and  make  new  roots. 


352 


TREES. 


and  maples,  let  us  inquire  what  is  the  best  method  of  transplanting 
them. 

The  first  point  regards  the  selection  of  the  trees  themselves. 
And  here  Sir  Henry  Stuart,  or  his  book,  would  teach  many  planters 
a  piece  of  real  tree-craft  which  they  are  ignorant  of ;  and  that  is, 
that  there  is  as  much  difference,  in  point  of  hardiness  and  power  of 
endurance,  between  a  tree  taken  out  of  the  woods,  where  it  is  shel- 
tered by  other  trees,  and  one  taken  from  the  open  field,  where  it 
stands  alone,  exposed  to  the  fullest  influences  of  wind  and  storm, 
light  and  sunshine,  as  there  is  between  a  languid  drawing-room  fop 
and  a  robust  Green  Mountain  boy.  For  this  good  and  sufficient 
reason,  always  choose  a  tree  that  grows  alone,  in  an  open  site,  and 
in  a  soil  that  will  allow  you  to  retain  a  considerable  ball  of  roots 
entire.* 

"How  large  an  elm  or  maple  may  we  transplant?"  Our 
answer  to  this  question  might  be,  as  large  as  you  can  afford — but 
for  the  great  difficulty  of  managing  a  very  large  tree  when  out  of 
the  ground.  That  it  may  be  done,  is  now  a  well-established  fact ; 
and  hence,  the  only  question  is  as  to  its  expediency.!  Trees  from 
20  to  30  feet  in  height,  we  conceive  to  be,  on  the  whole,  the  most 
suitable  size. 

There  are  two  modes  now  in  considerable  use  for  moving  trees 
of  this  size ;  the  first  is  the  Stuart  mode,  to  be  performed  in  spring 
or  autumn ;  the  second,  the  frozen-ball  mode,  to  be  performed  in 
winter. 

The  Stuart  mode  is  the  best  for  trees  of  the  largest  size.  In 
this  mode,  the  roots  are  laid  bare  with  the  greatest  care ;  every  root, 

*  The  best  subjects,  when  they  can  be  had  (as  they  frequently  may  in  the 
neighborhood  of  towns),  are  trees  planted  some  ten  or  fifteen  years  before, 
in  some  neighbor's  grounds,  where  they  require  being  taken  out  (if  you  can 
persuade  him  of  it),  because  originally  planted  too  thickly. 

f  One  of  the  most  successful  instances  of  this  kind  of  transplanting,  in 
this  country,  is  at  the  cottage  residence  of  Thomas  Perkins,  Esq.,  at  Brook- 
line,  near  Boston.  An  avenue  of  considerable  extent  may  be  seen  there, 
composed  of  elms  thirty  to  forty  feet  high,  beautifully  shaped,  and  having 
the  effect  of  full-grown  trees.  They  were  removed  more  than  a  fourth  of  a 
mile,  from  the  seat  of  Col.  Perkins,  with  perfect  success,  and  we  believe  by 
the  Stuart  mode. 


ON  TRANSPLANTING  LARGE  TREES.  353 


as  far  as  possible,  being  preserved.  The  wheels  are  then  brought 
up  to  the  tree,  the  axle  made  fast  to  the  body  (with  a  stuffing  be- 
tween to  prevent  injury  to  the  bark),  and  the  pole  is  tied  securely 
to  the  trunk  and  branches  higher  up.  A  long  rope,  or  ropes,  being 
now  fixed  to  the  pole  and  the  branches,  the  pole  serves  as  a  lever, 
and  the  top  is  thus  brought  down,  while  the  mass  of  roots  is  sup- 
ported upon  the  axle.  After  the  tree  is  properly  balanced  on  the 
carriage,  horses  are  attached,  and  it  is  transported  to  the  hole  pre- 
pared for  it. 

This  mode  is  one  which  requires  a  good  deal  of  practical  skill 
in  the  management  of  roots,  and  in  the  whole  art  of  transplanting, 
though  great  effects  may  be  produced  by  it  in  the  hands  of  skilful 
workmen.* 

Transplanting  with  a  frozen  ball  is  a  good  deal  practised  in  this 
country,  and  is  much  the  cheapest  and  most  perfect  mode  for  trees 
of  moderately  large  size ;  that  is  to  say,  trees  from  20  to  30  feet 
high,  and  whose  trunks  measure  from  6  inches  to  a  foot  in  diame- 
ter. Trees  of  this  proportion  are  indeed  the  most  suitable  for  the 
embellishment  of  new  places,  since  they  unite  immediate  beauty  of 
effect  with  comparative  cheapness  in  removal,  while  it  requires  less 
mechanical  skill  to  remove  them. 

The  process  of  removing  a  tree  with  a  frozen  ball  is  a  simple 
one,  especially  if  performed  in  the  early  part  of  winter,  while  there 
is  yet  but  little  frost  in  the  ground.  In  the  first  place,  the  hole 
should  be  made  ready ,f  and  a  pile  of  suitable  soil  laid  by  the 
side  of  it  and  covered  with  straw,  to  prevent  its  being  frozen  when 
wanted. 

Then  a  trench  is  dug  all  round  the  tree,  in  order  to  leave  a  ball 

*  "We  cannot  but  express  our  surprise  that  some  of  our  exceedingly  in- 
genious and  clever  Yankee  teamsters  have  never  taken  up,  as  a  business,  the 
art  of  transplanting  large  trees.  To  a  person  competent  to  the  task,  with 
his  machine,  his  oxen,  and  his  trained  set  of  hands,  an  abundance  of  occu- 
pation would  be  offered  by  wealthy  improvers  of  new  places,  to  whom  the 
cost  of  a  dozen  elms,  forty  feet  high,  at  a  remunerating  price,  would  be  a 
matter  of  trifling  moment. 

f  Especially  should  the  soil,  in  the  bottom  of  the  hole,  be  well  trenched 
and  manured. 

23 


354 


TREES. 


of  earth  from  six  to  eight  feet  in  diameter.  The  trench  should  be 
wide  enough  to  allow  the  operator  gradually  to  undermine  the 
ball  of  roots,  so  that  at  last  the  tree  just  stands,  as  it  were,  upon  one 
leg.  In  this  condition  let  the  ball  be  exposed  to  a  sharp  frosty 
night,  that  it  may  freeze  quite  firmly.  The  next  day  you  approach 
the  subject  with  a  common  low  shed,  or  stone  boat,  drawn  by  a  pair 
or  two  of  oxen  ;  (or  if  the  tree  measures  only  six  inches,  a  pair  of 
horses  will  do.)  The  tree  with  its  ball  is  now  thrown  to  one  side  ; 
the  sled  is  then  placed  under  the  ball  on  the  opposite  side ;  then  the 
tree  is  righted,  the  ball  placed  upon  the  middle  of  the  sled,  and  the 
whole  drawn  out  of  the  hole.  A  teamster  of  very  little  practice  will 
now  see  at  a  glance  how  to  balance  his  load  upon  the  sled ;  and 
once  on  level  ground,  it  is  no  difficult  matter  to  drag  the  whole  for 
half  a  mile  or  more  to  its  final  location. 

After  the  tree  is  placed  in  the  hole  previously  prepared  for  it, 
the  good  soil  must  be  closely  pressed  around  the  ball,  and  the  trunk 
supported  in  its  place,  till  after  the  equinoctial  rains,  by  stakes  or 
braces* 

There  is  no  mode  for  the  removal  of  trees  in  which  they  will 
suffer  so  little  as  this ;  partly  because  the  roots  are  maintained  more 
entire  than  in  any  other  way,  and  partly  because  the  soil  is  not 
even  loosened  or  disturbed  about  a  large  portion  of  the  fibres. 
Hence,  though  a  slight  reduction  of  the  top  is  advisable,  even  in 
this  case,  to  balance  the  loss  of  some  of  the  long  roots,  it  is  not  ab- 
solutely needful,  and  in  no  case  is  the  symmetry  of  the  head  de- 
stroyed ;  and  the  possessor  of  the  newly  moved  tree  has  the  satis- 
faction of  gazing  upon  a  goodly  show  of  foliage  and  shade  as  soon 
as  June  comes  round  again. 

Those  of  our  readers  who  are  groaning  for  the  want  of  trees,  will 
see  by  these  remarks  that  their  case  is  by  no  means  desperate  ;  that, 
on  the  contrary,  we  think  it  a  very  hopeful  one ;  and  that,  in  short,  if 
they  can  afford  to  expend  from  two  to  ten  dollars  per  tree,  and  can 
get  at  the  right  kind  of  subjects  in  their  neighborhood,  they  may, 

*  "We  may  here  add,  that  besides  elms  and  maples,  this  mode  is  equally 
Buccessful  with  evergreens  of  all  kinds.  "We  have  seen  white  pines  and  firs, 
of  twenty  feet  high,  moved  so  perfectly  in  this  manner,  that  they  never 
showed  the  least  mark  of  the  change  of  place. 


4 


ON  TRANSPLANTING-  LARGE  TREES.  355 

if  they  choose,  transform  their  premises  from  a  bleak  meadow  to  a 
wood  as  thick  as  "  Vallombrosa's  shade,"  before  the  spring  opens. 

And  now,  one  word  more  to  those  who,  having  trees,  are  impa- 
tient for  luxuriant  growth  ;  who  desire  to  see  annual  shoots  of  six 
feet  instead  of  twenty  inches  ;  and  who  do  not  so  much  care  what 
it  costs  to  make  a  few  trees  in  a  favorite  site  advance  rapidly,  pro- 
vided it  is  possible.  What  they  wish  to  know  is,  can  the  thing  be 
done? 

We  answer,  yes.  To  make  a  hardy  tree  '*  grow  three  times  as 
fast  in  a  summer  as  it  usually  does  (we  speak  now,  of  course,  of 
trees  in  a  common  soil),  it  is  only  necessary  that  it  should*  have 
three  times  the  depth  for  the  roots  to  grow  in,  and  three  times  the 
amount  of  food  for  its  consumption  while  growing. 

And,  first  of  all,  for  very  rapid  and  luxuriant  growth  in  our  cli 
mate,  the  soil  must  be  deep — deep — deep.  Three  feet  of  trenching 
or  subsoiling  is  imperative ;  and  we  have  seen  astonishing  results, 
where  places  for  trees  twelve  feet  broad  and  five  feet  deep  have  been 
prepared  for  them.  If  any  one  of  our  readers  will  take  the  trouble 
to  watch  an  elm-tree  making  its  growth  next  season,  he  will  notice 
that,  if  the  season  is  moist  and  cool,  the  shoots  will  continue  to 
lengthen  till  past  midsummer  ;  but  if,  on  the  contrary,  the  season  is 
a  dry  one,  all  growth  will  be  over  by  the  middle  of  June.  Why 
does  the  growth  cease  so  early  in  the  season  ?  Simply  because  the 
moment  the  moisture  in  the  soil  fails,  and  the  roots  feel  the  effects 
of  the  sun,  the  terminal  buds  form  at  the  end  of  each  shoot,  and 
then  all  growth  for  the  season  is  over.  Deepen  the  soil,  so  that  the 
roots  go  on  growing  in  its  cool,  moist  depths,  and  the  tops  will  go 
on  lengthening,  despite  the  power  of  the  sun  ;  nay,  so  long  as  there 
is  moisture,  by  the  help  of  it.  And  hence,  the  length  of  time  which 
a  tree  will  continue  to  grow,  depends  mainly  upon  the  depth  of  the 
soil  in  which  it  is  planted. 

If  any  skeptic  wishes  to  be  convinced  of  the  effects  of  deep  and 

*  We  say  a  hardy  tree,  because  every  arboriculturist  knows  that  to  pro- 
mote extra  luxuriance,  in  a  tree  not  perfectly  hardy,  increases  its  tenderness, 
because  the  wood  will  not  ripen  well,  like  short  jointed  growth ;  but  there 
is  no  fear  of  this  with  elms,  oaks,  maples,  or  any  perfectly  hardy  native 
trees. 


356 


TREES. 


rich  soil  upon  the  luxuriance  of  a  plant,  he  has  only  to  step  into  a 
vinery,  like  that  in  Clinton  Point,  and  see,  with  his  own  eyes,  the 
same  sorts  of  grape,  which  in  common  soil,  even  under  glass,  usu- 
ally grow  but  six  or  eight  feet  high  in  a  season,  and  with  stems  like 
pipe-stems,  growing  twenty  or  thirty  feet  in  a  single  season,  with 
stems  of  the  thickness  of  a  man's  thumb,  and  ripening  delicious 
fruit  in  fourteen  months  after  being  planted.  Now,  exactly  the 
same  effect  may  be  produced  by  deepening  and  enriching  the  soil, 
where  the  elm  or  any  other  hardy  ornamental  tree  is  to  be  planted  ■ 
and  we  put  it  thus  plainly  to  some  of  our  readers,  who  are  impa- 
tient of  the  growth  of  trees,  that  they  may,  if  they  choose,  by  a 
little  extra  pay,  have  more  growth  in  three  years  than  their  neigh- 
bors do  in  ten. 


xn. 


A  CHAPTER  ON  HEDGES. 

February,  184/7. 

"  rpHERE  was  a  certain  householder  which  planted  a  vineyard, 
-L  and  hedged  it  round  about."  What  better  proof  can  we  give, 
than  this  sacred  and  familiar  passage,  of  the  antiquity,  as  well  as 
the  wisdom,  of  making  hedges.  But  indeed  the  custom  is  older 
than  the  Christian  era.  Homer  tells  us  that  when  Ulysses,  after  his 
great  deeds,  returned  to  seek  his  father  Laertes,  he  found  the  old 
king  in  his  garden,  preparing  the  ground  for  a  hedge,  while  his  ser- 
vants were  absent, 

"  To  search  the  woods  for  seta  of  flowery  thorn, 
Their  orchard  bounds  to  strengthen  and  adorn." 

Pope's  Odyssey. 

The  lapse  of  3000  years  has  not  taught  the  husbandman  or  the 
owners  of  orchards  and  gardens,  in  modern  times,  any  fairer  or  bet- 
ter mode  of  enclosing  their  lauds,  than  this  most  natural  and  simple 
one  of  hedging  it  round  about.  Fences  of  iron  or  wood,  carefully 
fashioned  by  art,  are  fitting  and  appropriate  in  their  proper  places 
— that  is,  in  the  midst  of  houses  and  great  cities — but  in  the  open, 
free  expanse  of  country  landscape,  the  most  costly  artificial  barrier 
looks  hard  and  incongruous  beside  the  pleasant  verdure  of  a  live 
hedge. 

Necessity,  it  is  often  said,  knows  no  law,  and  the  emigrant  set- 
tler on  new  lands,  where  stone  and  timber  are  so  abundant  as  to  be 


358 


TREES. 


the  chief  obstacles  to  the  progress  of  his  laDors  on  the  soil,  must 
needs  employ  for  a  long  time,  rail  fences,  board  fences,  and  stone 
walls.  But  in  most  of  the  Atlantic  States  the&  materials  are  already 
becoming  so  scarce,  that  hedges  will  soon  be  the  most  economical 
mode  of  enclosing  grounds.  In  the  prairie  lands  of  the  west,  hedges 
must  also,  from  the  original  and  prospective  scarcity  of  timber,  soon 
be  largely  resorted  to  for  all  permanently  divided  grounds — such  as 
gardens  and  orchards. 

Touching  the  charms  which  a  good  hedge  has  for  the  eye,  they 
are  so  striking,  and  so  self-evident,  that  our  readers  hardly  need  any 
elaborate  inventory  from  us.  That  clever  and  extraordinary  man, 
William  Cobbett,  who  wrote  books  on  gardening,  French  grammar 
and  political  economy,  with  equal  success,  said,  in  his  usual  em- 
phatic manner,  "  as  to  the  beauty  of  a  fine  hedge,  it  is  impossible 
for  any  one  who  has  not  seen  it,  to  form  an  idea ;  contrasted  with  a 
wooden,  or  even  a  brick  fence,  it  is  like  the  land  of  Canaan  corn- 
fared  with  the  deserts  of  Arabia  !  " 

The  advantages  of  a  hedge  over  the  common  fence,  besides  its 
beauty,  are  its  durability,  its  perfect  protection  against  man  and 
beast,  and  the  additional  value  it  confers  upon  the  land  which  it 
encloses.  A  fence  of  wood,  or  stone,  as  commonly  made,  is,  at  the 
best,  but  a  miserable  and  tottering  affair;  soon  needing  repairs, 
which  are  a  constant  drain  upon  the  purse ;  often  liable  to  be  broken 
down  by  trespassing  Philistines  ;  and,  before  many  years,  decaying, 
or  so  far  falling  down,  as  to  demand  a  complete  renewal.  Now  a 
good  hedge,  made  of  two  plants  we  shall  recommend,  will  last  for 
ever  ;  it  is  an  everlasting  fence,"  at  least  in  any  acceptation  of  the 
word  known  to  our  restless  and  changing  countrymen.  When  once 
fully  grown,  the  small  trouble  of  annual  trimming  costs  not  a  whit 
more  than  the  average  expense  of  repairs  on  a  wooden  fence,  while 
its  freshness  and  verdure  are  renewed  with  every  vernal  return  of  the 
"  flower  and  the  leaf." 

As  a  protection  to  the  choicer  products  of  the  soil,  which  tempt 
the  spoiler  of  the  orchard  and  the  garden,  nothing  is  so  efficient  as 
a  good  hedge.  It  is  like  an  impregnable  fortress,  neither  to  be 
scaled,  broken  through,  nor  climbed  over.  Fowls  will  not  fly  over 
it,  because  they  fear  to  alight  upon  its  top ;  and  men  and  beasts  are 


A  CHAPTER  ON  HEDGES. 


359 


not  likely  to  make  more  than  one  attempt  to  force  its  green  walls. 
It  shows  a  fair  and  leafy  shield  to  its  antagonist,  but  it  has  thou- 
sands of  concealed  arrows  ready  at  a  moment  of  assault,  and  there 
are  few  creatures,  however  bold,  who  care  to  "  come  to  the  scratch" 
twice  with  such  a  foe.  Indeed  a  well  made  and  perfect  thorn 
hedge  is  so  thick  that  a  bird  cannot  fly  through  it. 

"  The  hedge  was  thick  as  is  a  castle  wall, 
So  that  who  list  without  to  stand  or  go, 
Though  he  would  all  the  day  piy  to  and  fro, 
He  could  not  see  if  there  were  any  wight 
Within  or  no." — Chaucer. 

"  This  is  all  true,"  we  hear  some  impatient  reader  say ;  "  hedges 
are  beautiful,  excellent,  good  ;  but  what  an  age  they  require — five, 
six,  seven,  years — to  be  cut  down — the  poor  things — once  or  twice, 
to  be  kept  back  every  year  with  shortening  and  shearing,  and  only 
to  reach  the  height  of  one's  head,  with  such  an  outlay  of  time  and 
trouble.  Ah !  it  is  too  tedious,  I  must  build  a  paling — I  shall  never 
have  patience  to  wait  for  a  hedge ! " 

Build  a  paling,  friend ;  nature  does  not  get  up  hasty  job-work, 
like  journeymen  carpenters.  But  at  least  be  consistent.  Fill  your 
garden  with  annuals.  Do  not  sow  any  thing  more  lasting,  or  asking 
longer  leases  of  time  than  six  weeks — beans  and  summer  sun-flow- 
ers. Breed  no  stock,  plant  no  orchards,  drain  no  meadows  and — 
set  no  hedges !  Leave  all  these  to  wiser  men,  or  rather  be  per- 
suaded of  the  wisdom  of  doing  in  the  best  way,  what  tillers  of  the 
earth  have  not  learned  to  do  better  after  a  lapse  of  centuries  ! 

But  there  are  also  persons,  readers  of  ours,  who  must  be  treated 
with  more  respect.  They  will  tell  us  that  they  have  more  reason 
in  their  objections  to  hedges.  They  admire  hedges — they  have 
planted  and  raised  them.  But  they  have  not  succeeded,  and  they 
have  great  doubts  of  the  possibility  of  making  good  hedges  in  the 
United  States.  We  know  all  the  difficulties  which  these  cultivators 
have  experienced,  for  we  have  made  the  same  trials,  and  seen  the 
same  obstacles  ourselves.  But  we  are  confident  we  can  answer 
their  objections  in  a  few  words.  The  Hawthorn  {Crataegus)  can- 
not be  depended  upon  as  a  hedge  plant  in  this  country. 


360 


TREES. 


Hundreds  of  emigrants  from  Great  Britain,  familiar  all  their 
lives  with  hawthorn  hedges  and  their  treatment,  and  deploring  the 
unsightliness  of  "  posts  and  rails"  in  America,  have  made  hedges  of 
their  old  favorite,  the  common  English  hawthorn,  and  given  them 
every  care  and  attention.  Here  and  there  we  see  an  instance  of 
success  ;  but  it  cannot  be  denied  that,  in  the  main,  there  is  no  suc- 
cess. The  English  hawthorn  is  not  adapted  to  our  hot  and  bright 
summers,  and  can  never  be  successfully  used  for  farm  hedges* 

Bnt  there  are  many  species  of  native  hawthorn  scattered 
through  our  woods.  Will  not  these  make  good  hedges  ?  We 
answer,  excellent  ones — nothing  can  be  much  better.  Almost  any 
of  them  are  superior  to  the  foreign  sort  for  our  climate.  We  have 
seen  hedges  of  the  two  species  known  in  the  nurseries  as  the  New- 
castle thorn  (  Crataegus  crus-galli)  and  Washington  thom  (  0.  cordata), 
that  realized  all  we  could  desire  of  a  beautiful  and  effective  verdant- 
less  fence. 

A  few  years  ago,  therefore,  we  strongly  recommended  these  na- 
tive thorns — we  hoped  to  see  them  planted  in  all  parts  of  the  coun- 
try. But  we  are  forced  to  admit  now  that  there  is  a  reason  why 
we  fear  they  will  never  make  permanent  hedges  for  the  country  at 
large,  and  for  farm  purposes. 

This  is,  their  liability  to  be  utterly  destroyed  by  that  insect,  so 
multiplied  in  many  parts  of  the  country,  the  aj)ple  borer.  Wher- 
ever there  are  old  orchards,  this  insect  sooner  or  later  finds  its  way, 
and  sooner  or  later  it  will  attack  all  the  hawthorns,  whether  native 
or  foreign,  for  they  all  belong  to  the  same  family  as  the  apple-tree, 
and  are  all  its  favorite  food.  Fifteen  years  ago,  a  person  riding 
through  the  lower  part  of  New  Jersey  and  Delaware,  would  have 
been  struck  with  the  numerous  and  beautiful  hedges  of  Newcastle 
and  Washington  thorns.    Whole  districts,  in  some  parts,  were 

*  We  know  there  are  exceptions.  We  have  ourselves  about  1000  feet  of 
excellent  hedge  of  this  plant.  And  we  saw,  mth  great  satisfaction,  last 
summer,  on  the  fine  farm  of  Mr.  Godfrey,  near  Geneva,  N.  Y.,  more  than  a 
mile  of  promising  young  hedge  of  the  English  thorn.  But  the  soil  and  climate 
there,  are  peculiarly  favorable.  These  are  exceptions  to  thousands  of  in- 
stances of  total  failure. 


A  CHAPTER  ON  HEDGES. 


361 


fenced  with  them,  and  nurserymen  could  scarcely  supply  the  de- 
mand for  young  plants.  Now  we  learn  that  whole  farms  have  lost 
their  hedges  by  the  borer,  which  in  some  places  attacked  them  so 
suddenly,  perforating  and  girdling  the  stems  near  the  ground,  that 
in  two  seasons,  sometimes  indeed  in  one,  the  hedge  would  be  half 
killed.  Of  course  the  planting  of  thorn  hedges  is  almost  abandoned 
there,  and  we  are  assured  by  growers  of  the  plant  in  those  States, 
who  frequently  sold  hundreds  of  thousands,  that  there  is  now  no  de- 
mand whatever  for  them.* 

We  do  not  doubt  that  there  are  many  sections  of  the  country 
where  good  hawthorn  hedges  of  the  best  native  species,  may  be 
grown.  In  some  places  this  fatal  foe  to  it  may  never  appear — 
though  it  follows  closely  in  the  steps  of  every  careless  orchardist. 
In  gardens  where  insects  are  closely  watched,  it  is  not  veiy  difficult 
to  prevent  their  ravages  upon  the  thorn  plants.  But  what  we  mean 
now  to  point  out  as  distinctly  as  possible,  is  this — that  no  species 
of  hawthorn,  or  Crataegus,  is  likely  ever  to  become  a  hedge  plant 
of  general  use  and  value  to  farmers  in  America. 

"What  we  want  in  a  hedge  plant  for  this  country  is,  vigor,  hardi- 
ness, longevity,  and  a  sap  and  bark  either  offensive,  or  offering  no 
temptations  to  any  destructive  insects.  Are  there  such  plants? 
We  think  we  may  now,  after  the  matter  has  been  pretty  thoroughly 
tested,  answer  yes;  and  name  the  Buckthorn,  and  the  Osage 
Orange  ;  the  former  for  the  northern,  and  the  latter  for  the  south- 
ern portions  of  our  country.  These  plants  are  both  natives.  As 
they  may  not  be  familiar  to  many  of  our  readers,  we  shall,  before 
entering  upon  the  planting  of  hedges,  briefly  describe  them,  and 
give  correct  sketches  of  their  leaves  and  growth,  so  that  they  may 
be  identified  by  any  person. 

*  "We  recall  to  mind  an  instance  on  the  Hudson,  where  three  years  ago 
we  saw  a  very  beautiful  hedge  of  the  Newcastle  thorn — almost  as  handsome 
in  its  glossy  foliage  as  holly  itself.  During  the  past  summer  we  again  be- 
held it,  nearly  destroyed  by  the  insidious  attacks  of  the  borer. 


862 


TREES. 


THE  BEST  HEDGE  PLANTS, 


I.  THE  BUCKTHORN. 
Rhamnus  catharticus. — L. 


Fig.  L  The  Buckthorn. 


The  buckthorn  is 
a  deciduous  shrub 
growing  from  ten  to 
fifteen  feet  high, 
bushy,  or  with  nu- 
merous branches. 
The  bark  is  grayish 
brown ;  the  leaves 
are  about  an  inch 
or  an  inch  and  a  half 
long,  dark  green, 
smooth,  ovate,  and 
notched  or  serrated 
on  the  edges,  and 
are  placed  nearly 
opposite  each  other 
on  the  branches. 
There  are  no  inde- 
pendent thorns,  pro- 
perly speaking,  but 
the  end  of  each 
year's  shoots  termi- 
nates in  a  sharp 
point  or  thorn.  (See 
fig.  1.)  The  blos- 
soms are  small  and 
yellowish  green. 
They  are  succeeded 
by  numerous  round, 
black  berries,  which 
ripen  in  autumn, 
and  hang  till  frost, 


A  CHAPTER  ON  HEDGES. 


36S 


and  give  the  plant  something  of  an  ornamental  appearance.  The 
roots  are  unusually  black  in  color,  and  are  very  numerous. 

The  buckthorn  is  a  native  of  the  north  of  Europe,  Asia,  and 
North  America.  It  is  not  a  common  shrub  in  the  woods  in  this 
country,  but  we  find  it  very  frequently  in  this  neighborhood  and  in 
various  parts  of  Dutchess  county,  N".  Y.,  as  well  as  on  the  borders  of 
woods  in  Massachusetts.* 

The  bark  and  berries  of  the  buckthorn  are  powerful  cathartics. 
The  sap  of  the  berries,  mixed  with  alum,  makes  the  color  known  to 
painters  as  sap-green,  and  the  bark  yields  a  fine  yellow  dye. 

As  a  hedge  plant,  the  buckthorn  possesses  three  or  four  points 
of  great  merit.  In  the  first  place,  its  bark  and  leaf  are  offensive  to 
insects,  and  the  borer,  the  aphis,  and  others,  which  are  so  destructive 
to  all  hawthorns  in  many  parts  of  our  country,  will  not  touch  it. 

In  the  second  place,  it  is  remarkable  for  its  hardiness,  its  ro- 
bustness, and  its  power  of  adapting  itself  to  any  soil.  It  will  bear 
any  climate,  however  cold,  for  it  grows  wild  in  Siberia ;  hence  it 
will  never  suffer,  as  the  English  thorn  has  been  known  to  do,  with 
an  occasional  winter  of  unusual  severity.  We  have  seen  it  growing 
under  the  shade  of  trees,  and  in  dry  and  poor  soil,  as  well  as  thriv- 
ing in  moist  and  springy  soil;  and  in  this  respect,  and  in  its 
natural  rigid  thicket-like  habit,  it  seems  more  admirably  fitted  by 
nature  for  the  northern  hedge  plant  than  almost  any  other.  In  the 
third  place,  it  bears  the  earliest  transplanting,  has  great  longevity, 
and  is  very  thrifty  in  its  growth.  We  have  already  remarked  that  it 
is  well  supplied  with  roots.  Indeed  its  fibres  are  unusually  numer- 
ous even  in  seedlings  of  one  year's  growth.  Hence  it  is  transplant- 
ed with  remarkable  facility,  and  when  treated  with  any  thing  like 
proper  care,  not  one  in  five  thousand  of  the  plants  will  fail  to  grow. 
It  is  scarcely  at  all  liable  to  diseases,  and  no  plant  bears  the  shears 
better,  or  gives  a  denser  and  thicker  hedge,  or  is  longer  lived  in  a 
hedge.  Its  growth  is  at  least  one-third  more  rapid  than  that  of  the 
hawthorn,  and  the  facility  of  raising  it,  at  least  half  greater. 

*  Some  botanists  consider  it  a  foreign  plant,  introduced  and  naturalized 
in  this  country.  But  we  have  found  it  in  solitary  and  almost  inaccessible 
parts  of  the  Hudson  Highlands,  which  forbids  such  a  belief  on  our  part. 


364 


TREES. 


Lastly,  it  is  one  of  the  easiest  plants  to  propagate.  It  bears  ber- 
ries in  abundance.  These,  if  planted  in  autumn  as  soon  as  they 
are  ripe  (or  even  in  the  ensuing  spring),  will  germinate  in  the  spring, 
and  if  the  soil  is  good,  give  plants  from  a  foot  to  twenty  inches  high 
the  first  year — which  are  large  enough  for  transplanting  the  next 
spring  following.  The  seeds  of  the  hawthorn  do  not  vegetate  till 
the  second  year,  and  the  plants  properly  require  to  be  transplanted 
once  in  the  nurseries,  and  to  be  three  years  old,  before  they  are  fit 
for  making  hedges.  Here  is  at  once  a  most  obvious  and  important 
saving  of  time  and  labor. 

It  is  but  a  simple  matter  to  raise  buckthorn  plants.  You  begin 
by  gathering  the  seeds  as  soon  as  they  are  ripe,  say  by  the  middle 
of  October.*  Each  berry  contains  four  seeds,  covered  with  a  thin 
black  pulp.  Pkce  them  in  a  box  or  tub ;  mash  the  pulp  by  beat- 
ing the  berries  moderately  with  a  light  wooden  pounder.  Then  put 
them  in  a  sieve,  pour  some  water  over  them,  rub  the  seeds  through, 
and  throw  away  the  skin  and  pulp.  Two  or  three  rubbings  and 
washings  will  give  you  clean  seed.  Let  it  then  be  dried,  and  it  is 
ready  for  sowing. 

Next,  choose  a  good  bit  of  deep  garden  soil.  Dig  it  thoroughly, 
and  give  it  a  good  dressing  of  manure.  Open  a  drill  with  the  hoe, 
exactly  as  you  would  for  planting  peas,  and  scatter  the  seed  of  the 
buckthorn  ha  it,  at  an  average  of  two  or  three  inches  apart.  Cover 
them  about  an  inch  and  a  half  deep.  The  rows  or  drills  may,  if 
you  are  about  to  raise  a  large  crop,  be  put  three  feet  apart,  so  that 
the  horse  cultivator  may  be  used  to  keep  the  ground  in  order. 

In  the  spring  the  young  plants  will  make  their  appearance  plen- 
tifully. All  that  they  afterwards  require  is  a  thorough  weeding,  and 
a  dressing  with  a  hoe  as  soon  as  they  are  all  a  couple  of  inches  high, 
and  a  little  attention  afterwards  to  keep  the  ground  mellow  and  free 
from  weeds.  One  year's  growth  in  strong  land,  or  two  in  that  of 
tolerable  quality,  will  render  them  fit  for  being  transplanted  into  the 
hedge-rows. 

*  The  buckthorn  is  pretty  largely  cultivated  for  its  berries  at  the  vari- 
ous Shaking  Quaker  settlements  in  this  State  and  New  England :  and  seeds 
may  usually  be  procured  from  them  in  abundance,  aud  at  reasonable  prices. 


A  CHAPTER  ON  HEDGES. 


865 


If  the  buckthorn  has  any  defect  as  a  hedge  plant  it  is  this ; 
while  young  it  is  not  provided  with  strong  and  stout  roots  like  the 
hawthorn.  Its  thorns,  as  we  have  already  said,  stand  at  the  point 
of  each  shoot  of  the  old  wood.  Hence  it  is  that  a  buckthorn  hedge 
does  not  appear,  and  is  not,  really  well  armed  with  thorns  till  it  has 
attained  its  full  shape,  and  has  had  a  couple  of  seasons'  shearing. 
After  that,  the  hedge  being  well  furnished  with  the  ends  of  the 
shoots,  it  presents  thorns  on  every  face,  and  is  a  thorough  defence. 
Besides  this,  it  is  a  stronger  and  stouter  plant  than  the  thorn,  and 
offers  more  absolute  resistance  than  the  latter  plant.  Though  it 
may  be  kept  low,  yet  it  makes  a  most  efficient  shelter  if  allowed  to 
form  a  high  hedge.  One  of  the  largest  and  oldest  specimens  in 
New  England  is  that  at  Eoxbury,  planted  by  the  late  Hon,  John 
Lowell,  and  still  growing  on  the  estate  of  his  son.  It  is  very  strong, 
and  if  we  remember  right,  twelve  or  fifteen  feet  high.* 


II   THE  MACLURA,  OR  OSAGE  ORANGE. 
Madura  aurantiaca. 

The  osage  orange,  or  maclura,  grows  wild  in  abundance  in  the 
State  of  Arkansas,  and  as  far  north  as  the  Red  River. 

It  is  one  of  the  most  striking  and  beautiful  of  American  trees. 
Its  foliage  is  not  unlike  that  of  the  orange,  but  more  glossy,  and 

*  Mr.  Derby,  of  Salem,  -was  one  of  the  first  persons  to  employ  the  buck- 
thorn, and  to  urge  its  value  upon  the  public.  From  the  Transactions  of  the 
Essex  Agricultural  Society  for  1842,  we  extract  some  of  his  remarks  relating 
to  it :  "I  do  not  hesitate  to  pronounce  the  buckthorn  the  most  suitable  plant 
for  hedges  I  have  ever  met  with.  It  vegetates  early  in  the  spring,  and  re- 
tains its  verdure  late  in  autumn.  Being  a  native  plant,  it  is  never  injured 
by  the  most  intense  cold,  and  its  vitality  is  so  great  that  the  young  plants 
may  be  kept  out  of  ground  for  a  long  time,  or  transported  to  a  great  dis- 
tance without  injury.  It  never  sends  up  any  suckers,  nor  is  disfigured  by 
any  dead  wood.  It  can  be  clipped  into  any  shape  which  the  caprice  or  in- 
genuity of  the  gardener  may  devise,  and  it  needs  no  plashing  or  interlacing, 
the  natural  growth  of  the  plants  being  sufficiently  interwoven.  It  is  never 
cankered  by  unskilful  clipping,  but  will  bear  the  knife  to  any  degree." 


366 


TREES. 


polished ;  indeed  it  is  of  a  bright  varnished  green.  It  grows  lux- 
uriantly, about  thirty  or  forty  feet  high,  with  a  wide  and  spread- 
ing head.  The  flow- 
ers are  small  and 
inconspicuous,  pale 
green  in  color,  those 
preceding  the  fruit 
resembling  a  little 
ball,  (see  figure)* 
The  fruit  itself  is 
very  near  the  size 
and  shape  of  an 
orange,  yellow  at 
full  maturity,  and 
rough  on  the  out- 
side,  not  unlike  the 
seed  of  the  button- 
wood  or  sycamore. 
It  hangs  till  Octo- 
ber, is  not  eatable, 
but  is  striking  and 
ornamental  on  a 
large  tree.  t  This 
tree  was  first  intro- 
duced into  our  gar- 
dens, where  it  is 
now  well  known, 
from  a  village  of 
the  Osage  Indians, 
which,  coupled  with 
its  general  appear- 
ance, gave  rise  to 
The  wood  is  full  of  milky  sap,  and  we  have 


Fig.  2.  The  Osage  Orango. 


its  popular  name, 
never  seen  it  attacked  by  any  insects. 

A  great  many  trials  have  been  made  within  the  last  ten  years, 


*  The  male  and  female  flowers  are  borne  on  separate  trees. 


A  CHAPTER  ON  HEDGES. 


867 


in  various  parts  of  the  country,  with  the  Osage  orange,  as  a  hedge 
plant.  The  general  result,  south  of  this,  has  been  in  the  highest  de- 
gree favorable.  Many  .who  have  failed  with  all  species  of  hawthorn, 
have  entire  faith  in  the  value  of  this  plant,  and  we  have  no  longer 
a  doubt  that  it  is  destined  to  become  the  favorite  hedge  plant  of  all 
that  part  of  the  Union  lying  south  and  west  of  the  State  of  New- 
York* 


Fig.  3.  Fruit  of  the  Osage  Orange  Tree. 


The  Osage  orange,  when  treated  as  a  hedge  plant,  has  many  ex- 

*  The  Osage  orange  is  hardy  in  our  own  grounds,  where  we  have  culti- 
vated it  for  many  years.  In  New  England  it  will  probably  be  found  too 
tender  in  winter,  though  there  is  an  excellent  young  hedge  of  it  at  Belmont 
Place,  the  residence  of  J.  P.  Cushing,  Esq.,  near  Boston,  which  we  were  told 
the  past  season,  has  proved  quite  hardy.  Pruning  in  hedge  form,  by  check- 
ing its  luxuriance,  will  render  any  partially  tender  shrubs  more  hardy.  It 
may  be  safely  laid  down  as  a  rule,  judging  from  our  own  observations,  that 
the  Osage  orange  will  succeed  perfectly  as  a  hedge,  wherever  the  Isabella 
grape  will  ripen  in  the  open  air  without  shelter  or  protection.  This  is  a 
better  and  safer  guide  than  a  reference  to  parallels  of  latitude. 


368 


TEEES. 


cellent  characteristics.  It  is  robust,  vigorous,  and  long-lived.  It 
sends  out  a  great  abundance  of  branches,  bears  trimming  perfectly 
well,  is  most  amply  provided  at  all  times  with  stout  thorns,  and  its 
bright  and  glossy  foliage  gives  it  a  very  rich  and  beautiful  appear- 
ance. It  grows  well  on  almost  any  soil,  and  makes  a  powerful  and 
impenetrable  fence  in  a  very  short  time.  Though  it  will  bear  rough 
and  severe  pruning,  and  is  therefore  well  adapted  for  farm  fences, 
yet  it  must  be  regularly  trimmed  twice  every  year,  and  requires 
it  even  more  imperatively  than  other  hedge  plants,  to  prevent  its 
sending  out  strong  shoots  to  disfigure  the  symmetry  of  the  hedge. 

The  Osage  orange  is  not  yet  sufficiently  well  known  to  be  a 
cheap  plant  in  the  nurseries.*  But  this  is  because  it  is  not  yet  suffi- 
ciently in  demand.  It  is  easily  propagated,  and  will,  no  doubt,  soon 
be  offered  at  very  moderate  rates. 

This  propagation  is  done  in  two  ways ;  by  the  seed,  and  by  the 
cuttings  of  the  roots. 

The  seed  is  produced  plentifully  by  the  female  trees.  There  are 
large  bearing  trees  in  the  old  Landreth  and  McMahon  gardens,  near 
Philadelphia.  But  it  is  not  difficult  now  to  have  resort  to  those  of 
native  growth.  We  learn  that  this  tree  is  so  common  in  the  neigh- 
borhood of  Columbus,  Hempstead  Co.,  Arkansas,  that  the  seeds  may 
be  had  there  for  the  expense  of  gathering  them.  They  should  be 
gathered  at  the  latter  part  of  September,  and  the  clean  seed,  packed 
in  an  equal  quantity  of  diy  sand,  may  be  sent  to  any  part  of  the 
Union  before  planting  time.  A  quart  will  produce  at  least  5000 
plants.  The  seed  may  be  planted  in  broad  drills,  and  treated  just 
as  we  have  already  recommended  for  that  of  the  buckthorn.  But 
the  plants  are  seldom  fit  for  hedge  planting  till  the  second  year. 

The  other  mode  of  propagation  is  by  the  roots.  Pieces  of  the 
roots,  of  the  thickness  of  one's  little  finger,  made  into  cuttings  three 
or  four  inches  long,  and  planted  in  fines,  in  mellow  soil,  with  the  top 
of  the  root  just  below  the  surface,  will  soon  push  out  shoots,  and 
become  plants.    The  trimmings  of  a  hundred  young  plants,  when 

*  Messrs.  Landreth  and  Fulton,  of  Philadelphia,  have  a  stock  of  it  for 
sale  at  $12  per  1000.  The  usual  price  of  hawthorns  and  buckthorns  is  $6 
per  1000 ;  but  the  latter  may  be  raised  at  a  cost  of  not  more  than  $3. 


A  CHAPTER  ON  HEDGES. 


369 


taken  up  from  the  nursery  for  transplanting,  will  thus  give  nearly  a 
thousand  new  plants. 


PLANTING  AND  REARING  THE  HEDGE. 

Having  secured  the  plants,  the  next  step  necessary  is  to  prepare 
the  ground  where  the  future  hedge  is  to  be  formed. 

For  this  purpose  a  strip  must  be  marked  out,  three  or  four  feet 
in  width,  along  the  whole  line  where  the  hedge  is  to  grow.  This 
must  be  thoroughly  trenched  with  a  spade,  eighteen  inches  deep,  if 
it  is  to  be  a  garden  hedge ;  or  sub-soil  ploughed  to  that  depth,  if  it 
is  to  be  a  farm  hedge.  We  know  many  persons  content  themselves 
with  simply  digging  the  ground  in  the  common  way,  one  spade 
deep ;  but  we  take  it  for  granted  no  readers  of  ours  will  hesitate 
about  the  little  additional  trouble  of  properly  trenching  or  deepen- 
ing the  soil,*  when  they  may  be  assured  that  they  will  gain  just 
one-half  in  the  future  growth  and  luxuriance  of  the  hedge. 

It  is  the  custom  in  England  to  plant  hedges  on  a  bank  with  a 
ditch  at  one  side,  to  carry  off  the  water — and  some  persons  have, 
from  mere  imitation,  attempted  the  same  thing  here.  It  is  worse  than 
useless  in  our  hot  and  dry  climate.  The  hedge  thrives  better  when 
planted  on  the  level  strip,  simply  because  it  is  more  naturally  placed 
and  has  more  moisture.  If  the  bank  and  ditch  is  used,  they  are  con- 
tinually liable  to  be  torn  away  by  the  violence  of  our  winter  frosts. 

As  regards  the  season,  the  spring  is  the  best  time  for  the  north- 
ern States — the  autumn  for  the  southern.  Autumn  planting  at  the 
north  often  succeeds  perfectly  well,  but  the  plants  must  be  examined 
in  the  spring ;  such  as  are  thrown  out  of  place  by  the  frosts  require 
to  be  fixed  again,  and  this  often  involves  a  good  deal  of  trouble  in 
strong  soil.  Early  spring  planting,  therefore,  for  this  latitude,  is 
much  preferable  on  the  whole. 

A  good  dressing  of  any  convenient  manure  that  is  not  so  coarse 
as  to  be  unmanageable  in  planting,  should  be  put  upon  the  soil  and 

*  Those  who  may  be  fortunate  enough  to  possess  rich  deep  bottom  or 
alluvial  lands,  are  the  only  persons  who  need  not  be  at  the  trouble  of  trench 
ing  their  soil. 

24 


370 


TREES. 


turned  under  while  the  trenching  is  going  on.  The  soil  must  be 
thoroughly  pulverized  and  freed  from  stones,  lumps,  and  rubbish, 
before  the  planting  begins. 

The  plants  are  now  to  be  made  ready.  This  is  done  in  the  first 
place,  by  assorting  them  into  two  parcels — those  of  large  and  those 
of  small  size.  Lay  aside  the  smaller  ones  for  the  richest  part  of 
your  ground,  and  plant  the  larger  ones  on  the  poorest  of  the  soil. 
This  will  prevent  that  inequality  which  there  would  be  in  the  hedge 
if  strong  and  weak  plants  were  mixed  together,  and  it  will  equalize 
the  growth  of  the  whole  plantation  by  dividing  the  advantages. 

The  plants  should  then  be  trimmed.  This  is  speedily  done  by 
cutting  down  the  top  or  stem  to  within  about  an  inch  of  what  was 
the  ground  line,  (so  that  it  will,  when  planted  again,  have  but  an 
inch  of  stem  above  the  soil,)  and  by  correspondingly  shortening  all 
the  larger  roots  about  one-third. 

If  you  have  a  good  deal  of  planting  to  do,  it  is  better  to  bury 
the  plants  in  a  trench  close  at  hand,  or  lay-them-in-by-the-heels,  as  it 
is  technically  called,  to  keep  them  in  good  order  till  the  moment 
they  are  wanted. 

The  hedge  should  be  planted  in  a  double  row,  with  the  plants 
placed,  not  opposite  to  each  other,  but  alternate — thus : 

******* 
*         *         *         *         *  * 

The  rows  should  be  six  inches  apart,  and  the  plants  one  foot 

apart  in  the  rows. 
This  will  require 
about  32  plants  to  a 
rod,  or  2000  plants 
to  1000  feet. 

Having  well  pul- 
verized the  soil,  set 
down  the  line  firmly 
for  the  first  row,  and 
with  a  spade  throw 
out  a  trench  about 
eight  or  ten  inches 

Fig.  4.  Manner  of  Planting  Hedges.  deep,  keeping  its  up- 

right or  firm  bank  next  to  the  fine.    Drop  the  plants  along  the  line 


A  CHAPTER  ON  HEDGES. 


371 


at  about  the  distance  they  mil  be  needed,  and  then  plant  them 
twelve  inches  apart,  keeping  them  as  nearly  as  possible  in  a  per- 
fectly straight  line ;  for  it  is  worth  bearing  in  mind,  that  you  are 
performing  an  act,  the  unimpeachable  straightforwardness  of  which 
will  no  doubt  be  criticized  for  a  great  many  years  afterwards.  Press 
the  earth  moderately  round  the  stem  of  the  plant  with  the  foot,  when 
•  the  filling-in  of  the  pulverized  soil  is  nearly  completed.  And,  finally, 
level  the  whole  nicely  with  the  hoe. 

Having  finished  this  row,  take  up  the  line  and  fix  it  again,  six 
inches  distant ;  open  the  trench  in  the  opposite  direction,  and  set 
the  plants  in  the  same  manner.  This  completes  the  planting.  The 
next  point,  and  it  is  one  of  great  importance,  is  the  cultivation  which 
the  young  plants  require  until  they  become  a  hedge.  It  is  indeed 
quite  useless  to  plant  a  hedge,  as  some  persons  do,  and  leave  it 
afterwards  to  be  smothered  by  the  evil  genius  of  docks  and  thistles. 
A  young  hedge  requires  about  the  same  amount  of  cultivation  as  a 
row  of  Indian  corn.  The  whole  of  the  prepared  strip  of  ground 
must  be  kept  loose  with  the  hoe,  and  free  from  weeds.  Then  light 
dressings  for  the  first  two  or  three  summers  will  be  required  to  effect 
this,  and  the  thrifty  and  luxuriant  state  in  which  the  plants  are 
thereby  kept,  will  well  repay  it,  to  the  eye  alone.  After  that,  the 
branches  of  the  hedge  will  have  extended  so,  as  in  a  good  degree  to 
shade  and  occupy  the  ground,  and  little  more  than  a  slight  occa- 
sional attention  to  the  soil  will  be  required. 

A  few  words  must  be  given  to  the  trimming  and  clipping  of  our 
now  established  hedge. 

The  plants  having,  before  they  were  planted,  been  cut  off  nearly 
even  with  the  surface  of  the  ground,  it  follows,  that,  in  the  ensuing 
spring,  or  one  year  from  the  time  of  planting,  they  have  made  many 
shoots  from  each  stem.  Let  the  whole  of  this  growth  then  be  cut 
down  to  within  six  inches  of  the  ground. 

The  following  spring,  which  will  be  two  years  of  growth,  cut  back 
the  last  season's  shoots,  leaving  only  one  foot  of  the  current  season's 
growth.    This  will  leave  our  hedge,  altogether,  eighteen  inches  high. 

The  third  year  shorten  back  the  tops  so  as  to  leave  again  one 
foot  of  the  year's  growth.  The  hedge  will  now  be  two  and  a  half 
feet  high. 


372 


TREES. 


This  course  must  be  pursued  every  spring  until  the  hedge  is  of 
the  desired  height  and  form,  which  will  take  place  in  five  or  six 
years.  The  latter  time  is  usually  required  to  make  a  perfect  hedge — 
though  the  buckthorn  will  make  a  pretty  good  hedge  in  five  years. 

This  severe  process  of  cutting  off  all  the  top  at  first,  and  annu- 
ally shortening  back  half  the  thrifty  growth  of  a  young  hedge,  seems 
to  the  novice  like  an  unnecessary  cruelty  to  the  plant,  and  trial  of 
one's  own  patience.  We  well  remember  as  a  boy,  how  all  our  in- 
dignation was  roused  at  the  idea  of  thus  seeing  a  favorite  hedge 
"put  back'1''  so  barbarously  every  year.  But  it  is  the  "inexorable 
must"  in  hedge  growing.  Raising  a  hedge  is  like  raising  a  good 
name ;  if  there  is  no  base  or  foundation  for  the  structure,  it  is  very 
likely  to  betray  dreadful  gaps  at  the  bottom  before  it  is  well  estab- 
lished. In  a  hedge,  the  great  and  all  important  point  is  to  make  a 
broad  and  thick  base.  Once  this  is  accomplished,  the  task  is  more 
than  half  over.  The  top  will  speedily  grow  into  any  shape  we  de- 
sire, and  the  sides  are  pliant  enough  to  the  will  of  him  who  holds 
the  shears.  But  no  necromancy,  short  of  cutting  the  whole  down 
again,  will  fill  up  the  base  of  a  hedge  that  is  lean  and  open  at  the 
bottom*  Hence  the  imperative  necessity  of  cutting  back  the  shoots 
till  the  base  becomes  a  perfect  thicket. 

The  hedge  of  the  buckthorn,  or  Osage  orange,  that  has  been 
treated  in  this  way,  and  has  arrived  at  its  sixth  year,  should  be  about 
six  feet  high,  tapering  to  the  top,  and  three  feet  wide  at  the  base. 
This  is  high  enough  for  all  common  purposes ;  but  when  shelter,  or 
extra  protection  is  needed,  it  may  be  allowed  to  grow  eight  or  ten 
feet  high,  and  four  feet  wide  at  the  base. 

In  trimming  the  hedge,  a  pah  of  large  shears,  called  hedge 
shears,  are  commonly  used.  But  we  have  found  that  English  labor- 
ers in  our  service,  will  trim  with  double  the  rapidity  with  the  instru- 
ment they  call  a  "  hook."  It  may  be  had  at  our  agricultural  ware- 
houses, and  is  precisely  like  a  sickle,  except  that  it  has  a  sharp  edge. 

When  the  hedge  has  attained  the  size  and  shape  which  is  finally 

*  Plashing  is  a  mode  of  interlacing  the  branches  of  hedges  that  are  thin 
and  badly  grown,  so  as  to  obviate  the  defect  as  far  as  possible.  It  need 
never  be  resorted  to  with  the  buckthorn,  when  a  hedge  is  properly  trim- 
med from  the  first. 


A  CHAPTER  ON  HEDGES. 


373 


desired,  it  is  not  allowed  to  grow  any  larger.  Two  shearings  or 
clippings  are  necessary,  every  season,  to  keep  it  in  neat  order — one 
in  June,  and  the  other  at  the  end  of  September. 

Counting  the  value  of  the  plants  at  the  commencement  at  five 
dollars  per  thousand,  the  entire  cost  of  the  hedge,  at  the  end  of  the 
sixth  year, — including  planting,  cultivating,  and  shearing  in  the  best 
manner, — would  here  be  about  seventy-five  cents  a  rod  ;  which,  for 
an  everlasting  fence,  and  one  of  so  much  beauty,  we  think  a  very 
moderate  sum. 

We  have  said  nothing  about  the  temporary  fencing  which  our 
hedge  will  need,  till  it  is  at  least  five  years  old — that  is,  if  it  is  a 
boundary  hedge,  or  is  bordered  on  one  or  both  sides  by  fields  where 
animals  run.  It  is  evident  enough  that  for  this  purpose,  in  most 
cases,  the  cheaper  the  fence  the  better.  A  very  indifferent  wooden 
fence  will  last  five  years,  and  a  light  barrier  of  posts  and  rails  will 
best  suit  the  taste  of  most  farmers.  A  much  more  convenient,  and  very 
excellent  one  for  the  purpose,  is  the  movable  hurdle  fence,  made  of 
light  chestnut  rails,  which  costs  but  little,  and  may  be  readily  re- 
moved from  one  place  or  field  to  another,  as  the  case  requires. 

No  better  tail  piece  can  be  given  to  this  long  article,  than  the 
following  sketch,  representing  the  remarkably  fine  specimen  of  the 
buckthorn  hedge  in  the  grounds  of  John  C.  Lee,  Esq.  of  Salem,  Mass. 


Fig.  5.   Mr.  Leo's  Hedge. 


XIII 


ON  THE  EMPLOYMENT  OF  ORNAMENTAL  TREES  AND 
SHRUBS  IN  NORTH  AMERICA. 

[From  Hovey's  Mag.  of  Horticulture.] 

December,  1835. 

IT  is  remarkable,  that  notwithstanding  the  rapid  progress  which 
horticulture  is  making  in  the  United  States,  so  little  attention 
is  paid  to  {he  planting  of  ornamental  trees,  with  a  view  to  the  embel- 
lishment of  our  country  residences.  The  magnificent  parks  of  Eng- 
land have  been  long  and  justly  admired,  as  constituting  one  of  the 
most  beautiful  features  of  that  highly  cultivated  country ;  and  al- 
though the  horticultural  creations  of  our  more  limited  means,  may 
never  equal  in  extent  and  grandeur  some  of  those  of  the  aristocracy 
of  Europe,  yet  every  person  of  cultivated  mind,  is  aware  how  beau- 
tiful the  hand  of  taste  can  render  even  very  limited  scenes,  by  the 
proper  application  of  the  principles  and  materials  necessary  to  men- 
tal pleasure  and  gratification. 

Considered  in  a  single  point  of  view,  what  an  infinite  variety  of 
beauty  there  is  in  a  tree  itself !  Every  part  is  admirable,  from  the 
individual  beauty  of  its  leaves,  to  its  grand  effect  as  a  whole.  Who 
has  not  witnessed  in  some  favorite  landscape  the  indescribable  charm 
thrown  over  the  whole  scene  by  a  single  tree  ?  Perhaps  a  huge 
giant,  whose  massy  trunk  and  wide  out-stretched  arms  have  been 
the  production  of  ages ;  or  the  more  graceful  form  of  another  whose 
delicate  foliage  reflects  the  sunbeam,  and  trembles  with  the  slightest 
breeze  that  passes  over  it.  There  is  no  monotony  in  nature — even 
in  trees,  every  season  has  its  own  charms.  Spring,  the  season  of 
renewed  life,  witnesses  the  rush  of  the  newly  imbibed  sap — the 


<?RNAMS»-TAL  TREES  AND  SHRUBS  IN  NORTH  AMERICA.  375 

b***s  swell — the  tender  leaves  unfold,  and  the  admirer  of  nature  is 
delighted  by  the  freshness  and  vividness  of  the  young  foliage.  Sum- 
mer comes — he  ;s  refreshed  by  the  fragrance  of  their  blossoms — 
their  shade  is  a  welcome  luxury  in  the  noontide  sun — perchance 
their  fruit  may  be  an  acceptable  offering  to  the  palate — and  who  in 
this  country  has  not  witnessed  the  autumnal  glories  of  an  American 
forest  ? 

There  is  no  countiy  of  the  globe  which  produces  a  greater  va- 
riety of  fine  forest  trees,  whether  considered  for  the  purposes  of  orna- 
ment or  timber,  than  North  America.  Yet  it  is  a  fact  that  for  both 
these  purposes,  more  particularly  the  first,  they  are  horticulturally 
better  known  in  many  parts  of  Europe,  than  they  are  now  at  home. 
Those  governments  have  imported  the  seeds'  of  all  our  most  valua- 
ble forest  trees,  annually,  for  more  than  a  century.  Instead  of 
planting,  our  agriculturists  have  hitherto  been  engaged  in  destroy- 
ing. In  the  Atlantic  States,  this  period  is  now  past;  and  we 
would,  therefore,  first  direct  the  attention  of  the  arboriculturist  to 
our  own  trees. 

There  is  not  in  the  whole  catalogue,  scarcely  a  more  interesting 
object  than  an  immense  oak  tree,  when  placed  so  as  to  be  consid- 
ered in  relation  to  the  large  mansion  of  a  wealthy  proprietor.  Its 
broad  ample  limbs  and  aged  form,  give  a  very  impressive  air  of 
dignity  to  the  whole  scene.  It  is  a  very  common  inhabitant  of  our 
woods,  there  being  forty-four  species  of  indigenous  growth  between 
the  20th  and  48th  degrees  of  north  latitude.*  The  pendulous 
branches  of  the  American  elm — the  light  foliage  of  the  birch — the 
cheerful  vernal  appearance  of  some  of  the  species  of  maple — the  de- 
licate leaf  of  the  locust,  and  the  heavy  masses  of  verdure  produced 
by  the  beech,  are  sufficient  to  render  them  all  ornamental  in  park 
scenery,  and  they  shoidd  ever  find  a  proper  situation  in  an  extensive 
lawn.  Our  American  poplars  should  be  recollected,  when  a  rapid 
growth  and  immediate  effect  is  required.  Gleditschia  triacanthos, 
or  the  sweet  locust,  is  interesting  from  its  long  masses  of  thorns. 
The  plane  or  sycamore  (Platanus  occidentals)  is  too  much  neglect- 
ed because  it  is  so  common ;  but  in  favorable  situations^  in  deep 


*  Michaux. 


376 


TREES. 


soils,  and  where  ample  room  is  afforded,  it  produces  a  noble  tree  of 
immense  size.  Several  have  been  measured  on  the  banks  of  the 
Ohio  from  forty  to  fifty  feet  in  circumference. 

A  native  tree,  but  little  known  in  our  ornamental  plantations,  is 
the  Kentucky  coffee  (Gymnocladus  canadensis).  It  is  a  native  of 
Kentucky  and  Tennessee,  grows  to  the  height  of  forty  feet,  and  its 
doubly  compound  foliage,  and  very  singular  appearance  when  de- 
foliated in  the  winter  months,  are  well  calculated  to  render  it  an 
interesting  feature  in  the  landscape.  Cupressus  distichum  (Taxo- 
dium  Rich),  the  deciduous  cypress,  flourishing  in  vast  quantities  in 
the  southern  parts  of  the  Union,  is,  though  perfectly  hardy,  and  of 
easy  cultivation,  but  little  known  in  the  northern  States.*  Its  beau- 
tiful light  green  foliage  contrasts  elegantly  with  the  denser  hue  of 
other  deciduous  trees,  and  we  are  hardly  aware  of  an  upright  grow- 
ing tree,  better  calculated  to  give  variety  of  color  to  groups  and 
masses,  than  this.  Catdlpa  syringsefolia  is  a  most  striking  orna- 
ment to  a  lawn,  when  in  the  summer  months  it  is  loaded  with  its 
large  clusters  of  parti-colored  flowers. 

But  the  most  splendid,  most  fragrant,  and  most  celebrated  orna- 
mental production  of  the  woods  and  forests  of  our  country,  is  yet  to 
be  mentioned.  It  is  the  unrivalled  Magnolia  grandifldra :  the  most 
magnificent  of  the  genus,  a  beautiful  tree  of  seventy  feet  in  its  na- 
tive soil,  only  attains  the  size  of  a  large  shrub  in  the  middle  States, 
and  will  scarcely  withstand  the  winters  of  the  northern.  But  M. 
acuminata,  though  not  so  beautiful,  is  a  fine  large  tree,  sometimes 
attaining  the  height  of  ninety  feet.  It  is  abundant  in  western  New- 
York  and  Ohio.  M.  macrophylla  is  not  only  remarkable  for  the 
beauty  of  its  flowers,  but  also  for  the  extraordinary  size  of  its  leaves ; 
they  having  been  measured  so  long  as  three  feet.  M.  tripetela,  the 
umbrella  tree,  is  also  a  fine  species  growing  in  districts  from  Georgia 
to  New- York ;  its  large,  cream-colored  flowers  measuring  seven  or 
eight  inches  in  diameter.  Still  more  rare,  though  highly  ornamen- 
tal, are  M.  cordata  and  M.  auriculata ;  small  trees  which  ought  to 
be  indispensable  to  every  collection.    The  species  of  smallest  stature 

*  "We  have  seen  a  celebrated  specimen  in  Col.  Carr's  garden,  Philadel 
phia,  180  feet  high,  25  feet  in  circumference,  and  91  years  old. 


ORNAMENTAL  TREES  AND  SHRUBS  IN  NORTH  AMERICA.  377 


and  most  frequent  occurrence  in  the  middle  States,  is  M.  glauca,  the 
flowers  of  which  are  highly  odoriferous.  It  succeeds  best  in  damp 
soils,  and  is  found  very  plentifully  in  situations  of  this  Mnd  in  New 
Jersey. 

Ornamental  trees  from  other  countries  should  find  a  prominent 
place  in  the  plantations  of  our  horticulturists.  They  not  only  have 
an  intrinsic  value  in  themselves,  but,  to  a  refined  taste,  they  offer 
gratifications  from  the  associations  connected  with  them.  Thus  the 
proprietor  may  view,  in  the  walks  over  his  grounds,  not  only  pro- 
ductions of  his  own  country,  but  their  fellows  from  many  other 
climes.  We  may  witness  flourishing  upon  the  same  soil,  many  of 
the  productions  of  southern  Europe  and  Asia  ;  individuals  from  the 
frigid  regions  of  Siberia,  and  the  almost  unknown  forests  of  Pata- 
gonia ;  vegetables  which  perseverance  has  abstracted  from  the  jea- 
lous Chinese,  and  which  the  botanical  traveller  has  discovered 
among  the  haunts  of  the  savage  Indian. 

Among  the  foreign  trees  which  are  most  generally  cultivated 
for  ornament  in  this  country,  we  may  mention  the  two  genera  of 
Tilia  and  JBsculus.  The  European  lime  or  linden-tree,  with  its  fine 
stately  form  and  fragrant  blossoms,  is  a  most  pleasing  object  as  an 
ornamental  tree.  The  horse  chestnut  (M.  hippocastanum)  is  per- 
haps better  known  than  any  foreign  tree  in  the  country ;  its  com- 
pact growth,  fine  digitate  leaves,  and  above  all,  its  superb,  showy 
flowers,  distributed  in  huge  bouquets  over  the  foliage,  have  rendered 
it  here,  as  in  Europe,  an  object  of  universal  admiration.  We  would 
here  beg  leave  to  direct  the  attention  of  planters  to  the  less  known, 
but  no  less  interesting  species  of  this  tree,  natives  of  our  own  soil. 
M.  paira,  producing  red,  and  M.  flava,  yellow  flowers,  form  very 
beautiful  trees  of  moderate  size.  The  other  species  are  rather  large 
shrubs  than  trees,  and  are  very  pretty  ornaments  to  the  garden. 

The  brilliant  appearance  of  the  European  mountain  ash  (Sor- 
bus  aucuparia),  when  in  autumn  it  is  densely  clad  with  its  rich 
crimson  fruit,  is  a  circumstance  sufficient  to  give  it  strong  claims  to 
the  care  of  the  arboriculturist,  independently  of  the  beauty  of  its 
foliage. 

We  must  not  forget,  in  this  brief  notice,  the  larches  both  of  Eu- 
rope and  our  country.  Pinus  tarix  has  long  been  considered  among 


878 


TREES. 


the  first  timber  trees  of  the  other  continent.  The  singularity  of  its 
foliage,  as  a  deciduous  tree,  its  long  declining  branches  and  droop- 
ing spray,  are  well  calculated  to  give  variety  to  the  landscape,  and 
we  are  happy  to  see,  that  both  this  and  our  two  American  species, 
P.  microcarpa  and  P.  pendula,  are  becoming  more  generally  objects 
of  attention  and  cultivation. 

Among  the  interesting  trees  of  more  recent  introduction,  and 
which  are  yet  rare  in  this  country,  we  may  mention  Salisburia  adi- 
antifolia,  the  Japanese  maiden-hair  tree.  The  foliage  is  strikingly 
singular  and  beautiful,  resembling  that  well  known  fern,  Adiantum 
pedatum,  and  the  tree  appears  to  be  very  hardy.  The  purple 
beech,  a  variety  of  Fagus  sylvatica,  is  a  very  unique  object,  with  its 
strangely  colored  leaves,  and  a  splendid  tree  lately  introduced  from 
the  banks  of  the  Missouri  and  Arkansas,  is  the  Osage  orange  (Ma- 
dura aurantiaca).  Its  vivid  green  leaves  and  rapid  growth  are 
already  known  to  us ;  but  it  is  described  to  us  as  being  a  tree,  in 
its  native  soil,  of  thirty  or  forty  feet  in  height,  and  bearing  abun- 
dance of  beautiful  fruit,  of  the  size  and  appearance  of  an  orange. 
The  weeping  ash  is  also  a  very  unique  and  desirable  object,  and  its 
long,  seemingly  inverted  shoots  may  be  introduced  in  some  situa- 
tions with  an  excellent  effect. 

We  have  often  regretted  that,  in  decorating  the  grounds  of 
country  residences,  so  little  attention  is  paid  by  the  proprietors,  to 
hardy  evergreen  trees.  Ornamental  at  any  season,  they  are  eminently 
so  in  winter — a  period,  in  this  latitude,  when  every  other  portion  of 
vegetable  matter  yields  to  the  severity  of  our  northern  climate,  and 
when  those  retaining  their  coats  of  verdure  uninjured  are  beautiful 
and  cheerful  memorials  of  the  unceasing  vitality  of  the  vegetable 
world.  Deciduous  trees  at  this  season  present  but  a  bleak  and  deso- 
late aspect — a  few  evergreens,  therefore,  interspersed  singly  over  the 
lawn,  or  tastefully  disposed  in  a  few  groups,  so  as  to  be  seen  from 
the  windows  of  the  mansion,  will  give  a  pleasing  liveliness  to  the 
scene,  which  cannot  fail  to  charm  every  person.  We  would  earn- 
estly advise  every  person  engaged  in  ornamental  planting,  to  transfer 
some  of  our  fine  native  evergreen  trees  to  their  lawn,  park,  or  terrace. 
We  are  aware  that  many  think  that  there  is  great  difficulty  in  trans- 
planting them  with  success,  but  experisnce  has  taught  us  that,  with 


ORNAMENTAL  TREES  AND  SHRUBS  IN  NORTH  AMERICA.  379 

the  following  precautions,  no  more  difficulty  is  found  than  with  deci- 
duous trees.  In  transplanting,  choose  the  spring  of  the  year,  at  the 
time  the  buds  are  swelling :  cut  as  few  of  the  roots  as  possible,  and 
do  not  suffer  them  to  become  dry  before  you  replace  them  in  the  soiL 
Among  our  most  ornamental  evergreen  trees  may  be  mentioned  the 
different  species  of  pine,  natives  of  North  America.  Several  of  them 
are  fine  stately  trees,  and  one  which  is  particularly  ornamental  as  a 
park  tree,  is  the  white  or  Weymouth  pine,  Pinus  strobus.  Pinus 
rigida,  when  old  and  large,  is  a  very  picturesque  tree ;  and  Pinus 
alba,  rubra  et  fraseri,  the  white,  red,  and  double  spruce  firs,  are  trees 
of  moderate  size,  very  generally  diffused  in  the  middle  States,  and 
easily  obtained.  The  well  known  balsam  fir,  Pinus  balsamea,  is  such 
a  beautiful  evergreen,  and  succeeds  so  well  in  this  climate,  that  it 
should  find  a  place  in  the  smallest  plantations.  We  have  observed 
it  thriving  well  even  in  confined  spaces  in  cities.  Thuja  occidentalis, 
the  arborvitfe,  is  a  very  interesting  tree,  and,  as  well  as  the  exotic 
T.  orientalis,  will  be  considered  very  ornamental  in  districts  where 
it  is  not  common. 

Among  the  most  ornamental  foreign  coniferous  trees  we  will  no- 
tice the  Norway  spruce,  the  drooping  branches  of  which,  in  a  large 
specimen,  are  so  highly  admired ;  the  well  known  Scotch  fir,  the 
finest  timber  tree  of  Europe,  celebrated  for  growing  on  thin  soils ; 
and  the  beautiful  silver  fir,  Pinus  picea;  all  of  them  are  noble 
trees,  and  as  they  can  be  readily  procured  at  the  nurseries,  should 
be  found  in  the  grounds  of  every  country  residence. 

Several  other  species  of  this  genus  which  are  thought  the  most 
beautiful  trees  of  Europe,  unfortunately  are  yet  scarce  in  this  country. 
The  stone  pine,  whose  seeds  are  a  delicious  fruit,  and  whose  "  vast 
canopy,  supported  on  a  naked  column  of  immense  height,  forms 
one  of  the  chief  and  peculiar  beauties  in  Italian  scenery  and  in  the 
living  landscapes  of  Claude,"  and  the  not  less  interesting  Pinus  Pi- 
naster and  P.  Cembra  of  the  mountains  of  Switzerland.  But  the 
most  desirable  evergreen  tree  which  flourishes  in  temperate  climates, 
is  the  classic  cedar  of  Lebanon,  Pinus  cedrus.  Its  singular  ramose 
branches  and  wild  picturesque  appearance  in  a  large  specimen,  give 
a  more  majestic  and  decided  character  to  a  fine  building  and  its 
adjacent  scenery,  than  any  other  tree  whatever.    It  is  a  native  of 


380 


TREES. 


the  coldest  parts  of  Mt.  Libanus,  but  according  to  Professor  Martyn, 
more  trees  are  to  be  found  in  England  at  the  present  time  than  on 
its  original  site.  As  it  is  scarcely  yet  known  as  an  ornamental  tree 
in  this  country,  we  certainly  do  not  know  of  an  object  better  worth 
the  attention  of  the  arboriculturist. 

We  observe  in  foreign  periodicals  that  several  magnificent  hardy 
individuals  belonging  to  this  section  of  trees,  have  been  lately  intro- 
duced into  Europe,  and  we  hope  before  long  they  will  find  their 
way  to  the  hands  of  our  cultivators.  Among  the  most  remarkable, 
we  may  mention  a  splendid  new  genus  of  pine  (Pinus  Lambertiana) 
lately  found  in  northern  California.  The  discoverer,  Mr.  D.  Doug- 
las, botanical  collector  to  the  London  Horticultural  Society,  de- 
scribes it  as  growing  from  one  hundred  and  fifty  to  two  hundred 
feet  in  height,  producing  cones  sixteen  inches  in  length.  He  mea- 
sured a  specimen  two  hundred  and  fifteen  feet  long  and  fifty-seven 
in  circumference.*  Several  other  specimens  of  this  genus,  of  much 
grandeur  and  beauty,  are  but  lately  introduced  into  cultivation,  and 
which  our  present  limits  will  barely  permit  us  to  enumerate.  Pinus 
Douglasii,  P.  monticola,  P.  grandis,  are  immense  trees  from  the 
northwest  coast  of  America  ;  Pinus  deodara  [Cedrus  deodara,  Rox.], 
from  Himalaya,  P.  taurica,  from  Asiatic  Turkey,  and  P.  Laricio, 
from  the  mountains  of  Corsica,  are  spoken  of  as  being  highly  orna- 
mental ;  Araucaria  imbricata,  a  beautiful  evergreen  tree  of  South 
America,  and  Cupressus  pendula,  the  weeping  cypress  of  the  Chi- 
nese, are  extremely  elegant — are  found  to  withstand  the  climate  of 
Britain,  and  would  probably  also  endure  that  of  this  country. 

We  cannot  close  these  remarks  without  again  adverting  to  the 
infinite  beauty  which  may  be  produced  by  a  proper  use  of  this  fine 
material  of  nature.  Many  a  dreary  and  barren  prospect  may  be 
rendered  interesting — many  a  natural  or  artificial  deformity  hidden, 
and  the  effect  of  almost  every  landscape  may  be  improved,  simply  by 
the  judicious  employment  of  trees.  The  most  fertile  countries  would 
appear  but  a  desert  without  them,  and  the  most  picturesque  scenery 
in  every  part  of  the  globe  has  owed  to  them  its  highest  charms. 
A.dded  to  this,  by  recent  improvements  in  the  art  of  transplanting,! 

*  Trans.  Linnsean  Soc,  vol.  15,  p.  497. 
f  Vide  Sir  Henry  Stuart  on  Planting. 


ORNAMENTAL  TREES  AND  SHRUBS  IN  NORTH  AMERICA.  381 

the  ornamental  planter  of  the  present  day  may  realize  almost  imme- 
diately what  was  formerly  the  slow  and  regular  production  of 
years. 

Additional  Note. — The  beauty  of  our  autumnal  foliage  is  well 
known  to  the  whole  world  :  it  has  long  been  the  theme  of  admira- 
tion with  the  poet  and  the  painter,  and,  to  a  foreigner,  it  appears  to 
be  one  of  the  most  superb  features  of  this  fresh  "  green  forest  land." 
Yet,  every  year,  the  axe  of  the  woodsman  erases  wide  masses  of  the 
rich  coloring  from  the  panorama.  Will  it  not  be  worth  the  consid- 
eration of  persons  who  are  now  making,  or  who,  in  many  parts  of 
the  country,  before  much  time  has  elapsed,  will  make  extensive  plan- 
tations of  forest  trees  for  ornament,  shelter  and  profit,  to  consider 
how  splendid  an  effect  may  be  produced,  by  a  disposition  of  the 
most  brilliantly  colored  of  our  indigenous  trees  in  separate  groups 
and  masses,  on  the  parks  and  lawns  of  extensive  countiy  residences  ? 
It  is  true,  that  autumn's  gay  colors  remain  with  us  but  for  a  short 
time,  but  is  this  not  also  true  with  respect  to  the  vivid  greenness  of 
vernal  foliage,  and  the  still  more  fugitive  beauty  of  blossom  which 
constitutes  one  of  the  chief  points  of  attraction  in  ornamental  trees  ? 
We  feel  confident  that,  when  landscape-gardening  shall  arrive  at  that 
perfection  which  it  is  yet  destined  to  attain  in  this  country,  this  will 
be  a  subject  of  important  consideration.  The  high  beauty  with  which 
the  richness  of  our  autumnal  tints  may  invest  even  the  tamest  scene, 
we  were  never  more  deeply  impressed  with,  than  in  travelling 
through  New  Jersey,  during  the  months  of  September  and  October 
of  the  present  year.  Every  one  is  aware  of  the  tame,  monotonous 
appearance  of  a  great  portion  of  the  interior  of  that  State ;  but  only 
those  who  have  seen  the  same  landscapes  in  autumn,  can  imagine 
with  what  a  magic  glow  even  they  are  enshrined  in  that  season. 
The  following  are  some  of  the  trees  we  noticed,  as  assuming  the 
richest  hues  in  their  foliage.  Scarlet  oak  (Quercus  coccinea)  bright 
scarlet,  dogwood  (Cornus  florida),  and  the  tupelo  and  sour  gum 
(Nyssa  villosa,  etc.)  deep  crimson,  different  species  of  Acer  or  ma- 
ple, various  shades  of  yellow  and  deep  orange  ;  the  sweet-gum  (Li- 
quidamber)  reddish  purple,  and  our  American  ash,  a  distinct  sombre 
purple.    These  are  but  a  few  of  the  most  striking  colors ;  and  aU 


382 


TREES. 


the  intermediate  shades  were  filled  up  by  the  birches,  sycamores, 
elms,  chesnuts,  and  beeches,  of  which  we  have  so  many  numerous 
species  in  our  forests,  and  the  whole  was  thrown  into  lively  contrast 
by  a  rich  intermingling  of  the  deep  green  in  the  thick  foliage  of  the 
pines,  spruces,  and  hemlocks. 


AGRICULTURE. 


AGKICULTUEE. 


I. 

CULTIVATORS— THE  GREAT  INDUSTRIAL  CLASS 
OF  AMERICA. 

June,  1848. 

AT  this  moment,  when  the  old  world's  monarchical  institutions 
are  fast  falling  to  pieces,  it  is  interesting  to  look  at  home,  at 
the  prosperous  and  happy  condition  of  our  new-world  republic. 

Abroad,  the  sovereign  springs  from  a  privileged  class,  and  holds 
his  position  by  the  force  of  the  army.  His  state  and  government 
are  supported  by  heavy  taxes,  wrung  from  the  laboring  classes,  often 
entirely  without  then;  consent.  At  home,  the  people  are  the  sover- 
eign power.  The  safety  of  their  government  lies  in  their  own  intel- 
ligence ;  and  the  taxes  paid  for  the  maintenance  of  public  order,  or 
to  create  public  works,  fall  with  no  heavy  or  unequal  pressure,  but 
are  wisely  and  justly  distributed  throughout  all  classes  of  society. 

In  the  United  States,  the  industrial  classes  are  the  true  sover- 
eigns. Idleness  is  a  condition  so  unrecognized  and  unrespected 
with  us,  that  the  few  professing  it  find  themselves  immediately 
thrown  out  of  the  great  machine  of  active  life  which  constitutes 
American  society.  Hence,  an  idle  man  is  a  cipher.  Work  he 
must,  either  with  his  head,  his  hands,  or  his  capital ;  work  in  some 
mode  or  other,  or  he  is  a  dethroned  sovereign.  The  practical  and 
busy  spirit  of  our  people  repudiates  him,  and  he  is  of  no  more  abso- 
25 


886 


AGRICULTURE. 


lute  consequence  than  the  poor  fugitive  king, — denied  and  driver, 
out  by  his  subjects. 

The  cultivators  or  the  soil  constitute  the  great  industrial 
class  in  this  country.  They  may  well  be  called  its  "bone  and 
sinew ;"  for,  at  this  moment  they  do  not  only  feed  all  other  classes, 
but  also  no  insignificant  portion  of  needy  Europe,  furnish  the  raw 
material  for  manufactures,  and  raise  the  great  staples  which  figure 
so  largely  in  the  accounts  of  the  merchant,  the  ship  owner  and  man- 
ufacturer, in  every  village,  town,  and  sea-port  in  the  Union. 

The  sovereign  people  has  a  better  right  to  look  over  its  "  rent 
roll" — to  examine  the  annual  sum  total  of  the  products  of  its  indus- 
try, than  any  other  sovereign  whatever ;  and  it  has  accordingly  em- 
ployed Mr.  Burke,  the  excellent  commissioner  of  patents,  to  collect 
statistical  facts,  and  publish  them  in  the  annual  report  of  his  office. 

An  examination  of  the  condition  of  this  country,  as  exhibited  in 
Mr.  Burke's  report  of  its  industrial  resources,  will,  we  think,  afford 
the  best  proof  ever  exhibited  of  the  value  of  the  American  Union, 
and  the  extraordinary  wealth  of  our  territory.  The  total  value  of 
the  products  of  the  soil,  alone,  for  the  past  year,  he  estimates  at 
more  than  one  thousand  Jive  hundred  millions  of  dollars.* 

The  value  of  the  grain  crops  and  great  agricultural  staples  of  the 
country,  for  1847,  amounts  to  $815,863,688. 

The  value  of  all  horticultural  products  (gardens,  orchards,  and 
nurseries),  is  estimated  at  $459,577,533. 

The  value  of  the  live  stock,  wool,  and  dairy  products,  amounts 
to  $246,054,579. 

The  value  of  the  products  of  the  woods  and  forests,  amounts  to 
$59,099,628. 

It  is  also  estimated  that  there  were  produced  last  year  224,384,502 
bushels  of  surplus  grains  of  various  kinds,  over  and  above  what  was 
amply  sufficient  for  home  consumption.  This  is  much  more  than 
enough  to  meet  the  ordinary  demand  of  all  the  corn-buying  coun- 
tries of  Europe. 

Over  one  thousand  Jive  hundred  millions  of  dollars,  in  the  pro- 
ducts of  the  soil,  for  a  single  year !    Does  not  this  fully  justify  us  in 


*  $1,579,596,428. 


CULTIVATORS — THE  GREAT  INDUSTRIAL  CLASS.  387 


holding  up  the  cultivators  of  the  American  soil  as  the  great  indus- 
trial class  ?  But  let  us  compare  them  a  little,  by  Mr.  Burke's  aid, 
with  the  other  industrial  classes. 

The  annual  product  of  all  the  manufactures  in  the  Union,  for 
1847,  is  estimated  at  $500,000,000.  The  profits  of  trade  and  com- 
merce at  $23,458,345.  The  profits  of  fisheries  $17,069,262;  and 
of  banks,  money  institutions,  rents,  and  professions,  $145,000,000. 
Total,  $809,697,407. 

Here  we  have  the  facts,  or  something,  at  least,  like  an  approxi- 
mation to  the  facts,  of  the  results  of  the  yearly  industrial  labor  of 
the  republic.  The  average  amount  is  the  enormous  sum  of  over  two 
thousand  three  hundred  and  eighty-nine  millions  of  dollars. 

Of  this,  the  agricultural  class  produces  nearly  double  that  of  all 
other  classes,  or  over  one  thousand  five  hundred  and  seventy-nine 
millions ;  while  all  other  classes,  merchants,  manufacturers,  profes- 
sional men,  etc.,  produce  but  little  more  than  eight  hundred  and 
nine  millions. 

There  are  a  few,  among  the  great  traders  and  "merchant 
princes,"  who  do  not  sufficiently  estimate  the  dignity  or  importance 
of  any  class  but  their  own.  To  them  we  commend  a  study  of  Mr. 
Burke's  statistical  tables.  There  are  some  few  farmers  who  think 
their  occupation  one  of  narrow  compass  and  resources ;  we  beg  them 
to  look  over  the  aggregate  annual  products  of  their  country,  and 
take  shame  to  themselves. 

It  is  no  less  our  duty  to  call  the  attention  of  our  own  readers  to 
the  great  importance  of  the  horticultural  interest  of  the  country. 
Why,  its  products  ($459,000,000)  are  more  than  half  as  great  in 
value  as  those  strictly  agricultural ;  they  are  almost  as  large  as  the 
whole  manufacturing  products  of  the  country ;  and  half  as  large  as 
the  manufacturing  and  all  other  interests,  excepting  the  agricultural, 
combined. 

In  truth,  the  profits  of  the  gardens  and  orchards  of  the  country, 
are  destined  to  be  enormous.  Mr.  Burke's  estimate  appears  to  us 
very  moderate ;  and  from  the  unparalleled  increase  in  this  interest 
very  recently,  and  the  peculiar  adaptation  of  our  soil  and  climate  to 
the  finest  fruits  and  vegetables,  the  next  ten  years  must  exhibit  an 
amount  of  horticultural  products  which  will  almost  challenge  belief. 


388 


AGRICULTURE. 


The  markets  of  this  country  will  not  only  be  supplied  with  fruit  in 
great  abundance  and  excellence,  but  thousands  of  orchards  will  be 
cultivated  solely  for  foreign  consumption. 

The  system  of  railroads  and  cheap  transportation  already  begins 
to  supply  the  seaboard  cities  with  some  of  the  fair  and  beautiful 
fruits  of  the  fertile  west.  When  the  orchards  of  Massachusetts  fail, 
the  orchards  of  western  New- York  will  supply  the  Boston  market 
with  apples ;  and  thus,  wherever  the  finest  transportable  products 
of  the  soil  are  in  demand,  there  they  will  find  their  way. 

There  are,  however,  many  of  the  finer  and  more  perishable  pro- 
ducts of  the  garden  and  orchard  which  will  not  bear  a  long  journey. 
These,  it  should  be  the  peculiar  business  of  the  cultivator  of  the  older 
and  less  fertile  soil  in  the  seaboard  States  to  grow.  He  may  not, 
as  an  agriculturist,  be  able  to  compete  with  the  fertile  soils  of  the 
west ;  but  he  may  still  do  so  as  a  horticulturist,  by  devoting  his  at- 
tention and  his  land  to  orchards  and  gardens.  If  it  is  too  difficult 
and  expensive  to  renovate  an  old  soil  that  is  worn  out,  or  bring  up 
a  new  one  naturally  poor,  for  farm  crops,  in  the  teeth  of  western 
grain  prices,  he  may  well  afford  to  do  so  for  the  larger  profit  derived 
from  orchard  and  garden  culture,  where  those  products  are  raised 
for  which  a  market  must  be  found  without  long  transportation.  He 
who  will  do  this  most  successfully  must  not  waste  his  time,  labor, 
and  capital,  by  working  in  the  dark.  He  must  learn  gardening  and 
orcharding  as  a  practical  art,  and  a  science.  He  must  collect  the 
lost  elements  of  the  soil  from  the  animal  and  mineral  kingdoms,  and 
bring  them  back  again  to  their  starting  point.  He  must  seek  out 
the  food  of  plants  in  towns  and  villages,  where  it  is  wasted  and 
thrown  away.  He  must  plant  and  prune  so  as  to  aid  and  direct 
nature,  that  neither  time  nor  space  are  idly  squandered. 

Certainly,  we  have  just  pride  and  pleasure  in  looking  upon  the 
great  agricultural  class  of  America.  Landholders  and  proprietors 
of  the  soil,  as  they  are,  governing  themselves,  and  developing  the 
resources  of  a  great  nation — how  different  is  their  position  from  that 
of  the  farmers  of  England, — hundreds  of  thousands  of  men,  work- 
ing, generation  after  generation,  upon  lands  leased  by  a  small  privi- 
leged body,  which  alone  owns  and  entails  the  soil ;  or  even  from 
that  of  France,  where  there  are  millions  of  proprietors,  but  proprie- 


CULTIVATORS  THE  GREAT  INDUSTRIAL  CLASS.  889 


tors  of  a  soil  so  subdivided  that  the  majority  have  half  a  dozen  acres, 
or  perhaps,  even  a  half  or  fourth  of  an  acre  in  extent, — often  scarcely 
sufficient  to  raise  a  supply  of  a  single  crop  for  a  small  family. 

If  we  have  said  any  thing  calculated  to  inspire  self-respect  in  the 
agricultural  class  of  this  country,  it  is  not  with  a  view  to  lessen  that 
for  any  other  of  its  industrial  classes.  Far  from  it.  Indeed,  with  the 
versatility  of  power  and  pursuits  which  characterize  our  people,  no 
class  can  be  said  to  be  fixed.  The  farming  class  is  the  great  nursery 
of  all  the  professions,  and  the  industrial  arts  of  the  country.  From 
its  bosom  go  out  the  shrewdest  lawyers  and  the  most  successful 
merchants  of  the  towns  ;  and  back  to  the  country  return  these 
classes  again,  however  successful,  to  be  regenerated  in  the  primitive 
life  and  occupation  of  the  race. 

But  the  agricultural  class  perhaps  is  still  wanting  in  a  just  ap- 
preciation of  its  importance,  its  rights,  and  its  duties.  It  has  so  long 
listened  to  sermons,  lectures  and  orations,  from  those  who  live  in 
cities  and  look  upon  country  life  as  " something  for  dull  wits"  that 
it  still  needs  apostles  who  draw  their  daily  breath  in  green  fields, 
and  are  untrammelled  by  the  schools  of  politics  and  trade. 

The  agricultural  journals,  over  the  whole  country,  have  done 
much  to  raise  the  dignity  of  the  calling.  They  have  much  still  to 
do.  The  importance  of  agricultural  schools,  of  a  high  grade,  should 
be  continually  insisted  upon,  until  every  State  Legislature  in  the 
Union  comes  forward  with  liberal  endowments  ;  and  if  pledges 
ought  ever  to  be  demanded  of  politicians,  then  farmers  should  not 
be  slow  to  require  them  of  their  representatives,  for  legislation  favor- 
able to  every  sound  means  of  increasing  the  intelligence  of  this 
great  bulwark  of  the  country's  safety  and  prosperity — the  cultivators 
of  the  soil. 


TI 


THE  NATIONAL  IGNORANCE  OF  THE  AGRICULTURAL 
INTEREST. 

September,  1851. 

TO  general  observers,  the  prosperity  of  the  United  States  in  the 
great  interests  of  trade,  commerce,  manufactures,  and  agricul- 
ture, is  a  matter  of  every-day  remark  and  general  assent.  The 
country  extends  itself  from  one  zone  to  another,  and  from  one 
ocean  to  another.  New  States  are  settled,  our  own  population  in- 
creases, emigration  pours  its  vast  tide  upon  our  shores,  new  soils 
give  abundant  harvests,  new  settlements  create  a  demand  for  the 
necessaries  and  luxuries  of  life  provided  by  the  older  cities,  and  the 
nation  exhibits  at  every  census,  so  unparalleled  a  growth,  and  such 
magnificent  resources,  that  common  sense  is  startled,  and  only  the 
imagination  can  keep  pace  with  the  probable  destinies  of  the  one 
hundred  millions  of  Americans  that  will  speak  one  language,  and, 
we  trust,  be  governed  by  one  constitution,  half  a  century  hence. 

As  a  wise  man,  who  finds  his  family  increasing  after  the  manner 
of  the  ancient  patriarchs,  looks  about  him  somewhat  anxiously,  to 
find  out  if  there  is  likely  to  be  bread  enough  for  then  subsistence, 
so  a  wise  statesman,  looking  at  this  extraordinary  growth  of  popula- 
tion, and  this  prospective  wealth  of  the  countiy,  will  inquire,  nar- 
rowly, into  its  productive  powers.  He  will  desire  to  know  whether 
the  national  domain  is  so  managed  that  it  will  be  likely  to  support 
the  great  people  that  will  be  ready  to  live  upon  it  in  the  next  century 
He  will  seek  to  look  into  the  present  and  the  future  sufficiently  to 
ascertain  whether  our  rapid  growth  and  material  abundance  do  not 


NATIONAL  IGNORANCE  OF  THE  AGRICULTURAL  INTEREST.  391 


arise  almost  as  much  from  the  migratory  habits  of  our  people,  and 
the  constant  taMng-up  of  rich  prairies,  yielding  their  virgin  harvests 
of  breadstuffs,  as  from  the  institutions  peculiar  to  our  favored 
country. 

We  regret  to  say,  that  it  does  not  require  much  scrutiny  on  the 
part  of  a  serious  inquirer,  to  discover  that  we  are  in  some  respects 
like  a  large  and  increasing  family,  running  over  and  devouring  a 
great  estate  to  which  they  have  faUen  heirs,  with  little  or  no  care  to 
preserve  or  maintain  it,  rather  than  a  wise  and  prudent  one,  seeking 
to  maintain  that  estate  in  its  best  and  most  productive  condition. 

To  be  sure,  our  trade  and  commerce  are  pursued  with  a  thrift 
and  sagacity  likely  to  add  largely  to  our  substantial  wealth,  and  to 
develope  the  collateral  resources  of  the  country.  But,  after  all,  trade 
and  commerce  are  not  the  great  interests  of  the  country.  That  in- 
terest is,  as  every  one  admits,  agriculture.  By  the  latter,  the  great 
bulk  of  the  people  live,  and  by  it  ah  are  fed.  It  is  clear,  therefore, 
if  that  interest  is  neglected  or  misunderstood,  the  population  of  the 
country  may  steadily  increase,  but  the  means  of  supporting  that 
population  (which  can  never  be  largely  a  manufacturing  population) 
must  necessarily  lessen,  proportionately,  every  year. 

Now,  there  are  two  undeniable  facts  at  present  staring  us  Amer- 
icans in  the  face — amid  all  this  prosperity  :  the  first  is,  that  the  pro- 
ductive power  of  nearly  all  the  land  in  the  United  States,  which  has 
been  ten  years  in  cultivation,  is  fearfully  lessening  every  season,  from 
the  desolating  effects  of  a  ruinous  system  of  husbandry ;  and  the 
second  is,  that  in  consequence  of  this,  the  rural  population  of  the 
older  States  is  either  at  a  stand-still,  or  it  is  falling  off,  or  it  increases 
very  slowly  in  proportion  to  the  population  of  those  cities  and  towns 
largely  engaged  in  commercial  pursuits. 

Our  census  returns  show,  for  instance,  that  in  some  of  the  States 
(such  as  Rhode  Island,  Connecticut,  Delaware,  and  Maryland),  the 
only  increase  of  population  is  in  the  towns — for  in  the  rural  popu- 
lation there  is  no  growth  at  all.  In  the  great  agricultural  State  of 
New- York,  the  gain  in  the  fourteen  largest  towns  is  sixty-four  per 
cent.,  while  in  the  rest  of  the  State  it  is  but  nineteen  per  cent.  In 
Pennsylvania,  thirty-nine  and  a  quarter  per  cent,  in  the  large  towns, 
and  but  twenty-one  per  cent,  in  the  rural  districts.   The  politicians  in 


392 


AGRICULTURE. 


this  State,  finding  themselves  losing  a  representative  in  the  new 
ratio,  while  Pennsylvania  gains  two,  have,  in  alarm,  actually  deigned 
to  inquire  into  the  growth  of  the  agricultural  class,  with  some  little 
attention.  They  have  not  generally  arrived  at  the  truth,  however, 
which  is,  that  Pennsylvania  is,  as  a  State,  much  better  farmed  than 
New- York,  and  hence  the  agricultural  population  increases  much 
faster. 

It  is  a  painful  truth,  that  both  the  press  and  the  more  active 
minds  of  the  country  at  large  are  strikingly  ignorant  of  the  condition 
of  agriculture  in  all  the  older  States,  and  one  no  less  painful,  that  the 
farmers,  who  are  not  ignorant  of  it,  are,  as  a  body,  not  inteUigent 
enough  to  know  how  to  remedy  the  evil. 

"  And  what  is  that  evil  ? "  many  of  our  readers  will  doubtless 
inquire.  We  answer,  the  miserable  system  of  farming  steadily  pur- 
sued by  eight-tenths  of  all  the  fanners  of  this  country,  since  its  first 
settlement ;  a  system  which  proceeds  upon  the  principle  of  taking 
as  many  crops  from  the  land  with  as  little  manure  as  possible — 

until  its  productive  powers  are  exhausted,  and  then  emigrating 

to  some  part  of  the  country  where  they  can  apply  the  same  practice 
to  a  new  soil.  It  requires  far  less  knowledge  and  capital  to  wear 
out  one  good  soil  and  abandon  it  for  another,  than  to  cultivate  a 
good  soil  so  as  to  maintain  its  productive  powers  from  year  to  year, 
unimpaired.  Accordingly,  the  emigration  is  always  "  to  the  west." 
There,  is  ever  the  Arcadia  of  the  American  farmer ;  there  are  the 
acres  which  need  but  to  be  broken  up  by  the  plough,  to  yield  their 
thirty  or  forty  bushels  of  wheat  to  the  acre.  Hence,  the  ever  full 
tide  of  farmers  or  farmers'  sons,  always  sets  westward,  and  the  lands 
at  home  are  left  in  a  comparatively  exhausted  and  barren  state,  and 
hence,  too,  the  slow  progress  of  farming  as  an  honest  art,  where 
every  body  practises  it  like  a  highway  robber. 

There  are,  doubtless,  many  superficial  thinkers,  who  consider 
these  western  soils  exhaustless — "  prairies  where  crop  after  crop  can 
be  taken,  by  generation  after  generation."  There  was  never  a 
greater  fallacy.  There  are  acres  and  acres  of  land  in  the  counties 
bordering  the  Hudson — such  counties  as  Dutchess  and  Albany — 
from  which  the  early  settlers  reaped  their  thirty  to  forty  bushels  of 
wheat  to  the  acre,  as  easily  as  then-  great-grandchildren  do  now  in 


NATIONAL  IGNORANCE  OF  THE  AGRICULTURAI,  INTEREST.  393 

the  most  fertile  fields  of  the  valley  of  the  Mississippi.  Yet  these 
very  acres  now  yield  only  twelve  or  fourteen  bushels  each,  and  the 
average  yield  of  the  county  of  Dutchess — one  of  the  most  fertile 
and  best  managed  on  the  Hudson,  is  at  the  present  moment  only 
six  bushels  of  wheat  to  the  acre !  One  of  our  cleverest  agricultural 
writers  has  made  the  estimate,  that  of  the  twelve  millions  of  acres 
of  cultivated  land  in  the  State  of  New-York,  eight  millions  are  in 
the  hands  of  the  "  skinners,"  who  take  away  every  thiug  from  the 
soil,  and  put  nothing  back ;  three  millions  in  the  hand  of  farmers 
who  manage  them  so  as  to  make  the  lands  barely  hold  their  own, 
while  one  million  of  acres  are  well  farmed,  so  as  to  maintain  a  high 
aud  productive  state  of  fertility.  And  as  New- York  is  confessedly 
one  of  the  most  substantial  of  all  the  older  States,  in  point  of  agri- 
culture, this  estimate  is  too  flattering  to  be  applied  to  the  older 
States.  Even  Ohio — newly  settled  as  she  is,  begins  to  fall  off  per 
acre,  in  her  annual  wheat  crop,  and  before  fifty  years  will,  if  the 
present  system  continues,  be  considered  a  worn  out  soil. 

The  evil  at  the  bottom  of  all  this  false  system  of  husbandry,  is 
no  mysteiy.  A  rich  soil  contains  only  a  given  quantity  of  vegeta- 
ble and  mineral  food  for  plants.  Every  crop  grown  upon  a  fertile 
soil,  takes  from  it  a  certain  amount  of  these  substances,  so  essential 
to  the  growth  of  another  crop.  If  these  crops,  like  most  of  our 
grain  crops,  are  sent  away  and  consumed  in  other  counties,  or  other 
parts  of  the  counties — as  in  the  great  cities,  and  none  of  their  essen- 
tial elements  in  the  way  of  vegetable  matter,  lime,  potash,  etc., 
restored  to  the  soil,  it  follows  as  a  matter  of  course,  that  eventually 
the  soil  must  become  barren  or  miserably  unprofitable.  And  such 
is,  unfortunately,  the  fact.  Instead  of  maintaining  as  many  animals 
as  possible  upon  the  farm,  and  carefully  restoring  to  the  soil  in  the 
shape  of  animal  and  mineral  manure,  all  those  elements  needful  to 
the  growth  of  future  vegetables,  our  farmers  send  nearly  all  their 
crops  for  sale  in  cities — and  allow  all  the  valuable  animal  and 
mineral  products  of  these  crops  to  go  to  waste  in  those  cities.* 

"  Oh !  but,"  the  farmer  upon  worn  out  land  will  say, "  we  cannot 

*  In  Belgium — the  most  productive  country  in  the  world, — the  urinary 
excrements  of  each  cow  are  sold  for  $10  a  year,  and  are  regularly  applied 
to  the  land,  and  poudrette  is  valued  as  gold  itself. 


394 


AGRICULTURE. 


afford  to  pay  for  all  the  labor  necessary  for  the  high  farming  you  ad- 
vocate." Are  you  quite  sure  of  that  assertion  %  We  suspect  if  you 
were  to  enter  carefully  into  the  calculation,  as  your  neighbor,  the 
merchant,  enters  into  the  calculation  of  his  profit  and  loss  in  his 
system  of  trade,  you  would  find  that  the  difference  in  value  between 
one  crop  of  12  bushels  and  another  of  30  bushels  of  wheat  to  the 
acre,  would  leave  a  handsome  profit  to  that  farmer  who  would  pursue 
with  method  and  energy,  the  practice  of  never  taking  an  atom  of 
food  for  plants  from  the  soil  in  the  shape  of  a  crop,  without,  in  some 
natural  way,  replacing  it  again.  For,  it  must  be  remembered,  that 
needful  as  the  soil  Is,  every  plant  gathers  a  large  part  of  its  food 
from  the  air,  and  the  excrement  of  animals  fed  upon  crops,  will 
restore  to  the  soil  all  the  needful  elements  taken  from  it  by  those 
crops. 

The  principle  Las  been  demonstrated  over  and  over  again,  but 
the  difficulty  is  to  get  the  farmers  to  believe  it.  Because  they  can 
get  crops,  such  as  they  are,  from  a  given  soil,  year  after  year,  with- 
out manure,  they  think  it  is  only  necessary  for  them  to  plant — Pro- 
vidence will  take  care  of  the  harvest.  But  it  is  in  the  pursuit  of 
this  very  system,  that  vast  plains  of  the  old  world,  once  as  fertile 
as  Michigan  or  Ohio,  have  become  desert  wastes,  and  it  is  perfectly 
certain,  that  when  we  reach  the  goal  of  a  hundred  millions  of  peo- 
ple, we  shall  reach  a  famine  soon  afterwards,  if  some  new  and  more 
enlightened  system  of  agriculture  than  our  national  "  skinning  "  sys- 
tem, does  not  beforehand  spring  up  and  extend  itself  over  the 
country. 

And  such  a  system  can  only  be  extensively  disseminated  and 
put  in  practice  by  raising  the  intelligence  of  farmers  generally.  Y^e 
have,  in  common  with  the  Agricultural  Journals,  again  and  again 
pointed  out  that  this  is  mainly  to  be  hoped  for  through  &  practical 
agricultural  education.  And  yet  the  legislatures  of  our  great  agri- 
cultural States  vote  down,  year  after  year,  every  bill  reported  by  the 
friends  of  agriculture  to  establish  schools.  Not  one  such  school, 
efficient  and  useful  as  it  might  be,  if  started  with  sufficient  aid  from 
the  State,  exists  in  a  nation  of  more  than  twenty  millions  of  farmers. 
"  What  matters  it,"  say  the  wise  men  of  our  State  legislatures,  "  if 
the  lands  of  the  Atlantic  States  are  worn  out  by  bad  farming  ?  Is  not 


NATIONAL  IGNORANCE  OF  THE  AGRICULTURAL  INTEREST.  395 

the  great  west  the  granary  of  the  world  ? "  And  so  they  huild 
canals  and  railroads,  and  bring  from  the  west  millions  of  bushels  ot 
grain,  and  send  not  one  fertilizing  atom  back  to  restore  the  land. 
And  in  this  way  we  shall  by-and-by  make  the  fertile  prairies  as 
barren  as  some  of  the  worn  out  farms  of  Virginia.  And  thus  "  the 
sins  of  the  fathers  are  visited  upon  the  children,  even  to  the  fourth 
generation!" 


m. 


THE  HOME  EDUCATION  OF  THE  RURAL  DISTRICTS. 

January,  1852. 

WHILE  the  great  question  of  Agricultural  Schools  is  continually 
urged  upon  our  legislatures,  and,  as  yet,  continually  put  off 
with  fair  words,  let  us  see  if  there  is  not  room  for  great  improvement 
in  another  way — for  the  accomplishment  of  which  the  farming  com- 
munity need  ask  no  assistance. 

Our  thoughts  are  turned  to  the  subject  of  home  education.  It 
is,  perhaps,  the  peculiar  misfortune  of  the  United  States,  that  the 
idea  of  education  is  always  affixed  to  something  away  from  home. 
The  boarding-school,  the  academy,  the  college — it  is  there  alone  we 
suppose  it  possible  to  educate  the  young  man  or  the  young  woman. 
Home  is  only  a  place  to  eat,  drink,  and  sleep.  The  parents,  for  the  most 
part,  gladly  shuffle  off  the  whole  duties  and  responsibilities  of  training 
the  heart,  and  the  social  nature  of  their  children — believing  that  if 
the  intellect  is  properly  developed  in  the  schools,  the  whole  man  is 
educated.  Hence  the  miserably  one-sided  and  incomplete  character 
of  so  many  even  of  our  most  able  and  talented  men — their  heads 
have  been  educated,  but  their  social  nature  almost  utterly  neglected. 
Awkward  manners  and  a  rude  address,  are  not  the  only  evidences 
that  many  a  clever  lawyer,  professional  man,  or  merchant,  offers  to 
us  continually,  that  his  education  has  been  wholly  picked  up  away 
from  home,  or  that  home  was  never  raised  to  a  level  calculated  to 
give  instruction.  A  want  of  taste  for  all  the  more  genial  and  kindly 
topics  of  conversation,  and  a  want  of  relish  for  refined  and  innocent 
social  pleasures,  mark  such  a  man  as  an  ill-balanced  or  one-sided 
man  in  his  inner  growth  and  culture.    Such  a  man  is  often  success- 


THE  HOME  EDUCATION  OF  THE  RURAL  DISTRICTS.  397 

fill  at  the  bar  or  in  trade,  but  be  is  uneasy  and  out  of  bis  element  in 
the  social  circle,  because  he  misunderstands  it  and  despises  it.  His 
only  idea  of  society  is  display,  and  he  loses  more  than  three-fourths 
of  the  delights  of  life  by  never  having  been  educated  to  use 
his  best  social  qualities — the  qualities  which  teach  a  man  how  to  love 
his  neighbor  as  himself,  and  to  throw  the  sunshine  of  a  cultivated 
understanding  and  heart  upon  the  little  trifling  events  and  enjoy- 
ments of  everyday  life. 

If  this  is  true  of  what  may  be  called  the  wealthier  classes  of  the 
community,  it  is,  we  are  sorry  to  say,  still  more  true  of  the  agricul- 
tural class.  The  agricultural  class  is  continually  complimented  by 
the  press  and  public  debaters, — nay,  it  even  compliments  itself 
with  being  the  "  bone  and  sinew  of  the  country  " — the  "  substantial 
yeomanry  " — the  followers  of  the  most  natural  and  "noblest  occupa- 
tion," &c.  &c.  But  the  truth  is,  that  in  a  country  like  this,  know- 
ledge is  not  only  power ;  it  is  also  influence  and  position  ;  and  the 
farmers,  as  a  class,  are  the  least  educated,  and  therefore  the  least 
powerful,  the  least  influential,  the  least  respected  class  in  the  com- 
munity. 

This  state  of  things  is  all  wrong,  and  we  deplore  it — but  the  way 
to  mend  it  is  not  by  feeding  farmers  with  compliments,  but  with 
plain  truths.  As  a  natural  consequence  of  belonging  to  the  least 
powerful  and  least  influential  class,  the  sons  and  daughters  of  far- 
mers— we  mean  the  smartest  sons  and  daughters — those  who  might 
raise  up  and  elevate  the  condition  of  the  whole  class,  if  they  would 
recognize  the  dignity  and  value  of  their  calling,  and  put  their  talents 
into  it — are  no  sooner  able  to  look  around  and  choose  for  themselves, 
than  they  bid  good  bye  to  farming.  It  is  too  slow  for  the  boys, 
and  not  genteel  enough  for  the  girls. 

All  the  education  of  the  schools  they  go  to,  has  nothing  to  do 
with  making  a  farmer  of  a  talented  boy,  or  a  fanner's  wife  of  a  bright 
and  clever  girl — but  a  great  deal  to  do  with  unmaking  them,  by 
pointing  out  the  superior  advantages  of  merchandise,  and  the 
"  honorable "  professions.  At  home,  it  is  the  same  thing.  The 
farmer's  son  and  daughter  find  less  of  the  agreeable  and  attractive, 
and  more  of  the  hard  and  sordid  at  their  fireside,  than  in  the  houses 
of  any  other  class  of  equal  means.    This  helps  to  decide  them  to 


398 


AGRICULTURE. 


leave  "  dull  care"  to  dull  spirits,  and  choose  some  field  of  life  which 
has  more  attractions,  as  well  as  more  risks,  than  their  own. 

We  have  stated  all  this  frankly,  because  we  believe  it  to  be  a 
false  and  bad  state  of  things  which  cannot  last.  The  farming  class 
of  America  is  not  a  rich  class — but  neither  is  it  a  poor  one — 
while  it  is  an  independent  class.  It  may  and  should  wield  the 
largest  influence  in  the  state,  and  it  might  and  should  enjoy  the 
most  happiness — the  happiness  belonging  to  intelligent  minds,  peace- 
ful homes,  a  natural  and  independent  position,  and  high  social  and 
moral  virtues.  We  have  said  much,  already,  of  the  special  schools 
which  the  farmer  should  have  to  teach  him  agriculture  as  a  practi- 
cal art,  so  that  he  might  make  it  compare  in  profit,  and  in  the  daily 
application  of  knowledge  which  it  demands,  with  any  other  pursuit. 
But  we  have  said  little  or  nothing  of  the  farmer's  home  education 
and  social  influences — though  these  perhaps  lie  at  the  very  root  of 
the  whole  matter. 

We  are  not  ignorant  of  the  powerful  influence  of  woman,  in  any 
question  touching  the  improvement  of  our  social  and  home  educa- 
tion. In  fact,  it  is  she  who  holds  all  the  power  in  this  sphere  ;  it  is 
she,  who  really,  but  silently,  directs,  controls,  leads  and  governs  the 
whole  social  machine — whether  among  farmers  or  others,  in  this 
country.  To  the  women  of  the  rural  districts — the  more  intelligent 
and  sensible  of  the  farmers'  wives  and  daughters,  we  appeal  then,  for 
a  better  understanding  and  a  more  correct  appreciation  of  their  true 
position.  If  they  will  but  study  to  raise  the  character  of  the  farmer's 
social  life,  the  whole  matter  is  accomplished.  But  this  must  be  done 
truthfully  and  earnestly,  and  with  a  profound  faith  in  the  true  no- 
bility and  dignity  of  the  farmer's  calling.  It  must  not  be  done  by 
taking  for  social  growth  the  finely  and  gloss  of  mere  city  customs 
and  observances.  It  is  an  improvement  that  can  never  come  from 
the  atmosphere  of  boarding-schools  and  colleges  as  they  are  now 
constituted,  for  boarding-schools  and  colleges  pity  the  farmer's  igno- 
rance, and  despise  him  for  it.  It  must,  on  the  contrary,  come  from 
an  intelligent  conviction  of  the  honesty  and  dignity  of  rural  life ;  a 
conviction  that  as  agriculture  embraces  the  sphere  of  God's  most 
natural  and  beautiful  operations,  it  is  the  best  calculated,  when  rightly 
understood,  to  elevate  and  engage  man's  faculties  ;  that,  as  it  feeds 


THE  HOME  EDUCATION  OF  THE  RURAL  DISTRICTS.  399 


and  sustains  the  nation,  it  is  the  basis  of  all  material  wealth  ;  and  as 
it  supports  all  other  professions  and  callings,  it  is  intrinsically  the 
parent  and  superior  of  them  all.  Let  the  American  farmer's  wife 
never  cease  to  teach  her  sons,  that  though  other  callings  may  be 
more  lucrative,  yet  there  is  none  so  true  and  so  safe  as  that  of  the 
farmer, — let  her  teach  her  daughters  that,  fascinating  and  brilliant  as 
many  other  positions  appear  outwardly,  there  is  none  with  so  much 
intrinsic  satisfaction  as  the  life  of  a  really  intelligent  proprietor  of 
the  soil,  and  above  all,  let  her  show  by  the  spirit  of  intelligence,  order, 
neatness,  taste,  and  that  beauty  of  pmpriety,  which  is  the  highest 
beauty  in  her  home,  that  she  really  knows,  understands,  and  enjoys 
her  position  as  a  wife  and  mother  of  a  farmer's  family — let  us  have 
but  a  few  earnest  apostles  of  this  kind,  and  the  condition  and  pros- 
perity of  the  agricultural  class,  intellectually  and  socially,  will 
brighten,  as  the  day  brightens  after  the  first  few  bars  of  golden  light 
tinge  the  eastern  horizon. 

We  are  glad  to  see  and  record  such  signs  of  daybreak — in  the 
shape  of  a  recognition  of  the  low  social  state  which  we  deplore,  and 
a  cry  for  reform — which  now  and  then  make  themselves  heard, 
here  and  there  in  the  country.  Major  Patrick — a  gentleman  whom 
we  have  not  the  pleasure  of  knowing,  though  we  most  cordially 
shake  hands  with  him  mentally,  has  delivered  an  address  before  the 
Jefferson  County  Agricultural  Society  in  the  State  of  New- York,  in 
which  he  has  touched  with  no  ordinary  skill  upon  this  very  topic. 
The  two  pictures  which  follow  are  as  faithful  as  those  of  a  Dutch 
master,  and  we  hang  them  up  here,  conspicuously,  in  our  columns, 
as  being  more  worthy  of  study  by  our  farmers'  families,  than  any 
pictures  that  the  Art-Union  will  distribute  this  year,  among  all  those 
that  will  be  scattered  from  Maine  to  Missouri. 

u  An  industrious  pair,  some  twenty  or  thirty  years  ago,  commenced 
the  world  with  strong  hands,  stout  hearts,  robust  health,  and  steady 
habits.  By  the  blessing  of  Heaven  their  industry  has  been  rewarded 
with  plenty,  and  their  labors  have  been  crowned  with  success.  The 
dense  forest  has  given  place  to  stately  orchards  of  fruits,  and  fertile 
fields,  and  Avaving  meadows,  and  verdant  pastures,  covered  with  eviden- 
ces of  worldly  prosperity.    The  log  cabin  is  gone,  and  in  its  stead  a  fair 


400 


AGRICULTURE. 


white  house,  two  stories,  and  a  wing  with  kitchen  in  the  rear,  flanked  by 
barns,  and  cribs,  and  granaries,  and  dairy  houses. 

"  But  take  a  nearer  view.  Ha  !  what  means  this  mighty  crop  of 
unmown  thistles  bordering  the  road  ?  For  what  market  is  that  still 
mightier  crop  of  pigweed,  dock  and  nettles  destined,  that  fills  up  the 
space  they  call  the  'garden?'  And  look  at  those  wide,  unsightly 
thickets  of  elm,  and  sumac,  and  briers,  and  choke-cherry,  that  mark  the 
lines  of  every  fence ! 

"  Approach  the  house,  built  in  the  road  to  be  convenient,  and  save 
land  !  Two  stories  and  a  wing,  and  every  blind  shut  close  as  a  miser's 
fist,  without  a  tree,  or  shrub,  or  flower  to  break  the  air  of  barrenness 
and  desolation  around  it.  There  it  stands,  white,  glaring  and  ghastly 
as  a  pyramid  of  bones  in  the  desert.  Mount  the  unfrequented  door  stone, 
grown  over  with  vile  weeds,  and  knock  till  your  knuckles  are  sore.  It 
is  a  beautiful  moonlight  October  evening ;  and  as  you  stand  upon  that 
stone,  a  ringing  laugh  comes  from  the  rear,  and  satisfies  you  that  some- 
body lives  there.  Pass  now  around  to  the  rear :  but  hold  your  nose 
when  you  come  within  range  of  the  piggery,  and  have  a  care  that  you 
don't  get  swamped  in  the  neighborhood  of  the  sink-spout.  Enter  the 
kitchen.  Ha !  here  they  are  all  alive,  and  here  they  live  all  together. 
The  kitchen  is  the  kitchen,  the  dining-room,  the  sitting-room,  the  room 
of  all  work.  Here  father  sit's  with  his  hat  on  and  in  his  shirt-sleeves. 
Around  him  are  his  boys  and  his  hired  men,  some  with  hats  and  some 
with  coats,  and  some  with  neither.  The  boys  are  busy  shelling  corn  for 
samp ;  the  hired  men  are  scraping  whip-stocks  and  whittling  bow-pins, 
throwing  every  now  and  then  a  sheep's  eye  and  a  jest  at  the  girls,  who, 
with  their  mother,  are  doing-up  the  house-work.  The  younger  fry  are 
building  cob-houses,  parching  corn,  and  burning  their  fingers.  Not  a 
book  is  to  be  seen,  though  the  winter  school  has  commenced,  and  the 
master  is  going  to  board  there.  Privacy  is  a  word  of  unknown  meaning 
in  that  family;  and  if  a  son  or  daughter  should  borrow  a  book,  it 
would  be  almost  impossible  to  read  it  in  that  room ,  and  on  no  occasion 
is  the"  front  house  opened,  except  when  '  company  come  to  spend  the 
afternoon,'  or  when  things  are  brushed  and  dusted,  and  £  set  to  rights.' 

"  Yet  these  are  as  honest,  as  worthy,  and  kind-hearted  people  as  you 
will  find  anywhere,  and  are  studying  out  some  way  of  getting  then 
younger  children  into  a  better  position  than  they  themselves  occupy. 
They  are  in  easy  circumstances,  owe  nothing,  and  have  money  loaned 
on  bond  and  mortgage.  After  much  consultation,  a  son  is  placed  at 
school  that  he  may  be  fitted  to  go  into  a  store,  or  possibly  an  office,  to 
study  a  profession ;  and  a  daughter  is  sent  away  to  learn  books,  and 


THE  HOME  EDUCATION  OF  THE  RURAL  DISTRICTS.  401 


manners,  and  gentility.  On  this  son  or  daughter,  or  both,  the  hard 
earnings  of  years  are  lavished ;  and  they  are  reared  up  in  the  belief  that 
whatever  smacks  of  the  country  is  vulgar — that  the  farmer  is  neces- 
sarily ill-bred  and  his  calling  ignoble. 

"  Now,  will  any  one  say  that  this  picture  is  overdrawn  1  I  think 
not.  But  let  us  see  if  there  is  not  a  ready  way  to  change  the  whole  ex- 
pression and  character  of  the  picture,  almost  without  cost  or  trouble.  I 
would  point  out  an  easier,  happier,  and  more  economical  way  of  educat- 
ing those  children,  far  more  thoroughly,  while  at  the  same  time  the 
minds  of  the  parents  are  expanded,  and  they  are  prepared  to  enjoy,  in 
the  society  of  their  educated  children,  the  fruits  of  their  own  early  in- 
dustry. 

"  And  first,  let  the  front  part  of  that  house  be  thrown  open,  and  the 
most  convenient,  agreeable,  and  pleasant  room  in  it,  be  selected  as  the 
family  room.  Let  its  doors  be  ever  open,  and  when  the  work  of  the 
kitchen  is  completed,  let  mothers  and  daughters  be  found  there,  with 
their  appropriate  work.  Let  it  be  the  room  where  the  family  altar  is 
erected,  on  which  the  father  offers  the  morning  and  the  evening  sacrifice. 
Let  it  be  consecrated  to  Neatness,  and  Purity,  and  Truth.  Let  no  hat 
ever  be  seen  in  that  room  on  the  head  of  its  owner  [unless  he  be  a 
Quaker  friend]  ;  let  no  coatless  individual  be  permitted  to  enter  it.  If 
father's  head  is  bald  (and  some  there  are  in  that  predicament),  his 
daughter  will  be  proud  to  see  his  temples  covered  by  the  neat  and  grace- 
ful silken  cap  that  her  own  hands  have  fashioned  for  him.  If  the  coat 
he  wears  by  day  is  too  heavy  for  the  evening,  calicoes  are  cheap,  and  so 
is  cotton  wadding.  A  few  shillings  placed  in  that  daughter's  hand,  in- 
sures him  the  most  comfortable  wrapper  in  the  world;  and  if  his  boots 
are  hard,  and  the  nails  cut  mother's  carpet,  a  bushel  of  wheat  once  in 
three  years,  will  keep  him  in  slippers  of  the  easiest  kind.  Let  the  table, 
which  has  always  stood  under  the  looking-glass,  against  the  wall,  be 
wheeled  into  the  room,  and  plenty  of  useful  (not  ornamental)  books  and 
periodicals  be  laid  upon  it.  When  evening  comes,  bring  on  the  lights — 
and  plenty  of  them — for  sons  and  daughters — all  who  can — will  be  most 
willing  students.  They  will  read,  they  will  learn,  they  will  discuss  the 
subjects  of  their  studies  with  each  other;  and  parents  will  often  be  quite 
as  much  instructed  as  their  children.  The  well  conducted  agricultural 
journals  of  our  day  throw  a  flood  of  light  upon  the  science  and  practice 
of  agriculture  ;  while  such  a  work  as  Downing's  Landscape  Gardening 
[or  the  Horticulturist'],  laid  one  year  upon  that  centre-table,  will  show 
its  effects  to  every  passer-by,  for  with  books  and  studies  like  these,  a 
purer  taste  is  born,  and  grows  more  vigorously. 
26 


402 


AGRICULTURE. 


"  Pass  along  that  road  after  five  years  working  of  this  system  in  the 
family,  and  what  a  change  !  The  thistles  by  the  roadside  enriched  the 
manure  heap  for  a  year  or  two,  and  then  they  died.  These  beautiful 
maples  and  those  graceful  elms,  that  beautify  the  grounds  around  that 
renovated  home,  were  grubbed  from  the  wide  hedge-rows  of  five  years 
ago ;  and  so  were  those  prolific  rows  of  blackberries  and  raspberries,  and 
bush  cranberries  that  show  so  richly  in  that  neat  garden,  yielding 
abundance  of  small  fruit  in  their  season.  The  unsightly  out-houses  are 
screened  from  observation  by  dense  masses  of  foliage ;  and  the  many 
climbing  plants  that  now  hang  in  graceful  festoons  from  tree,  and  porch, 
and  column,  once  clambered  along  that  same  hedge-row.  From  the 
meadow,  from  the  wood,  and  from  the  gurgling  stream,  many  a  native 
wild  flower  has  been  transplanted  to  a  genial  soil,  beneath  the  home- 
stead's sheltering  wing,  and  yields  a  daily  offering  to  the  household  gods, 
by  the  hands  of  those  fair  priestesses  who  have  now  become  their  minis- 
ters. By  the  planting  of  a  few  trees,  and  shrubs,  and  flowers,  and 
climbing  plants,  around  that  once  bare  and  uninviting  house,  it  has  be- 
come a  tasteful  residence,  and  its  money  value  is  more  than  doubled.  A 
cultivated  taste  displays  itself  in  a  thousand  forms,  and  at  every  touch 
of  its  hand  gives  beauty  and  value  to  property.  A  judicious  taste,  so 
far  from  plunging  its  possessor  into  expense,  makes  money  for  him.  The 
land  on  which  that  hedge-row  grew  five  years  ago,  for  instance,  has 
produced  enough  since  to  doubly  pay  the  expense  of  grubbing  it,  and 
of  transferring  its  fruit  briers  to  the  garden,  where  they  have  not  only 
supplied  the  family  with  berries  in  their  season,  but  have  yielded  many 
a  surplus  quart,  to  purchase  that  long  row  of  red  and  yellow  Antwerps, 
and  English  gooseberries ;  to  say  nothing  of  the  scions  bought  with 
their  money,  to  form  new  heads  for  the  trees  in  the  old  orchard. 

"  These  sons  and  daughters  sigh  no  more  for  city  life,  but  love  with 
intense  affection  every  foot  of  ground  they  tread  upon,  every  tree,  and 
every  vine,  and  every  shrub  their  hands  have  planted,  or  their  taste  has 
trained.  But  stronger  still  do  then*  affections  cling  to  that  family  room, 
where  their  minds  first  began  to  be  developed,  and  to  that  centre-table 
around  wluch  they  still  gather  with  the  shades  of  evening,  to  drink  in 
knowledge,  and  wisdom,  and  understanding. 

"  The  stout  farmer,  who  once  looked  upon  his  acres  only  as  a  labo- 
ratory for  transmuting  labor  into  gold,  now  takes  a  widely  different 
view  of  his  possessions.  His  eyes  are  opened  to  the  beautiful  in  nature, 
and  he  looks  with  reverence  upon  every  giant  remnant  of  the  forest,  that 
by  good  luck  escaped  his  murderous  axe  in  former  days.  No  leafy  mon- 
arch is  now  laid  low  without  a  stern  necessity  demands  it ;  but  many  a 


THE  HOME  EDUCATION  OF  THE  RURAL  DISTRICTS.  408 


vigorous  tree  is  planted  in  the  hope  that  the  children  of  his  children  may 
gather  beneath  the  spreading  branches,  and  talk  with  pious  gratitude  of 
him  who  planted  them.  No  longer  feeling  the  need  of  taxing  his  phy- 
sical powers  to  the  utmost,  his  eye  takes  the  place  of  his  hand,  when 
latter  grows  weary,  and  mind  directs  the  operations  of  labor.  See  him 
stand  and  look  with  delighted  admiration  at  his  sons,  his  educated  sons, 
as  they  take  hold  of  every  kind  of  work,  and  roll  it  off  with  easy  mo- 
tion, but  with  the  power  of  mind  in  every  stroke. 

"  But  it  is  the  proud  mother  who  takes  the  solid  comfort,  and  won- 
ders that  it  is  so  easy  after  all,  when  one  knows  how,  to  live  at  ease, 
enjoy  the  society  of  happy  daughters  and  contented  sons,  to  whom  the 
city  folks  make  most  respectful  bows,  and  treat  with  special  deference, 
as  truly  well-bred  ladies  and  gentlemen. 

"  Now,  this  is  no  more  a  fancy  picture  than  the  other.  It  is  a  pro- 
cess that  I  have  watched  in  many  families,  and  in  different  States.  The 
results  are  everywhere  alike,  because  they  are  natural.  The  same 
causes  will  always  produce  the  same  effects,  varying  circumstances  only 
modifying  the  intensity." 


rv. 


HOW  TO  ENRICH  THE  SOIL. 

November,  1849. 

OOD  cultivation  depends  on  nothing  so  much  as  the  supply  of 
VX  an  abundance  of  food.  And  yet  there  are  hundreds  and  thou- 
sands of  cultivators  who  do  not  recognize  this  fact  in  their  practice. 
They  feed  their  horses  and  cows  regularly,  because  it  is  undeniable 
that  they  have  mouths  and  stomachs  ;  and  experience  has  demon- 
strated, that  not  to  keep  these  sufficiently  supplied  amounts  at  last 
to  starvation.  But,  because  a  plant  has  a  thousand  little  concealed 
mouths,  instead  of  one  wide,  gaping  one, — because  it  finds  enough 
even  in  poor  soils  to  keep  it  from  actually  starving  to  death,  igno- 
rant cultivators  "appear  to  consider  that  they  deserve  well  of  their 
trees  and  plants,  if  they  barely  keep  their  roots  covered  with  earth. 
They  make  plantations  in  thin  soil,  or  upon  lands  exhausted  of  all 
inorganic  food  by  numberless  croppings,  and  then  wonder  why  they 
succeed  so  poorly  in  obtaining  heavy  products. 

Too  much,  therefore,  can  never  be  written  about  manures.  After 
all  that  has  been  said  about  them,  they  are  yet  but  little  under- 
stood ;  and  there  is  not  one  person  in  ten  thousand,  among  all  those 
owning  gardens  in  this  country,  who  does  not  annually  throw  away, 
or  neglect  to  make  use  of,  some  of  the  most  valuable  manures  for 
trees  and  plants, — manures  constantly  within  his  reach,  and  yet 
entirely  neglected. 

We  must  therefore  throw  out  a  few  seasonable  hints,  on  the 
preparation  and  use  of  manures,  which  we  hope  may  aid  such  of 


HOW  TO  ENRICH  THE  SOIL. 


405 


our  readers  as  are  anxious  to  feed  their  trees  and  plants  in  such  a 
generous  manner  as  to  deserve  a  grateful  return. 

Among  the  first  and  best  of  wasted  manures,  constantly  before 
our  eyes  in  the  autumn,  are  the  falling  leaves  of  all  deciduous  trees. 
When  we  remember  that  these  leaves  contain  not  only  all  the  sub- 
stances necessary  to  the  growth  of  the  plants  from  which  they  fall ; 
but  those  substances  in  the  proportions  actually  needed  for  new 
growth,  it  is  surprising  that  we  can  ever  allow  a  barrowful  to  be  lost. 
The  whole  riddle  of  the  wonderful  growth  of  giant  forests,  on  land 
not  naturally  rich,  and  to  which  nature  scarce  allows  a  particle  of 
what  is  commonly  called  manure,  lies  hidden  in  the  deep  beds  of 
fallen  leaves  which  accumulate  over  the  roots,  and,  by  their  gradual 
decay,  furnish  a  plentiful  supply  of  the  most  suitable  food  for  the 
trees  above  them.  Gather  and  take  away  from  the  trees  in  a  wood 
this  annual  coat  of  leaves,  and  in  a  few  seasons  (unless  manure  is 
artificially  given),  the  wood  will  begin  to  decline  and  go  to  decay. 
Hence,  we  must  beseech  all  our  good  orchardists  and  fruit-growers 
not  to  forget  that  dead  leaves  are  worth  looking  after.  They  should 
be  held  fast  in  some  way,  either  by  burying  them  about  the  roots 
of  the  trees  from  which  they  fall,  or  by  gathering  them  into  the 
compost  heap,  to  be  applied  when  duly  decomposed  in  the  spring. 

And  this  leads  us  to  say  that  an  excellent,  and  perhaps  the  best 
mode  of  using  leaves  for  the  orchard,  fruit-garden,  or  any  planta- 
tations  of  trees  or  shrubs,  is  the  following :  Take  fresh  lime  and 
slake  it  with  brine  (or  water  saturated  with  salt),  till  it  falls  to  a 
powder.  This  powder  is  not  common  lime,  but  muriate  of  lime. 
Gather  the  leaves  and  lay  them  up  in  heaps,  sprinkling  over  every 
layer  with  this  new  compound  of  lime,  at  the  rate  of  about  four 
bushels  to  a  cord  of  leaves.  This  will  be  ready  for  use  in  about  a 
month  if  the  weather  is  mild,  or  it  may  lie  all  winter,  to  be  used  in 
the  spring  ;  but  in  either  case,  the  heap  should  be  turned  over  once 
or  twice.  The  lime  decomposes  the  leaves  thoroughly;  and  the 
manure  thus  formed  is  one  of  the  most  perfect  composts  known  for 
trees  of  all  kinds.  We  need  not  add  that  its  value  to  any  given 
kind  of  tree,  as,  for  example,  the  pear,  the  apple,  or  the  oak,  is  in- 
creased by  using  the  leaves  of  that  tree  only ;  though  a  mass  of 
mixed  leaves  gives  a  compost  of  great  value  for  trees  and  shrubs 


406 


AGRICULTURE. 


generally.  The  practice  in  the  best  vineyards,  of  burying  the  leaves 
of  eacb  vine  at  its  root,  every  autumn,  is  not  only  one  of  the  most 
successful  modes  of  manuring  that  plant,  but  one  founded  in  the 
latest  discoveries  in  science. 

The  most  economical  mode  of  making  manure,  in  most  parts  of 
the  country,  is  that  of  using  muck  or  peat  from  swamps.  Though 
worth  little  or  nothing  in  its  crude  state,  it  contains  large  quantities 
of  the  best  food  for  trees  and  plants.  No  cultivator,  who  has  it  at  com- 
mand, should  complain  of  the  difficulty  of  getting  manure,  since  he  can 
so  easily  turn  it  into  a  compost,  equal  in  bulk  to  farm-yard  manure. 

The  cheapest  mode  of  doing  this,  is,  undoubtedly,  to  place  it  in 
the  stalls  underneath  the  cattle  for  a  few  days,  and  then  lay  it  up 
with  the  barn-yard  manure,  in  the  proportion  of  one  part  muck  to 
six  or  eight  parts  manure.  The  whole  will  then  ferment,  and  be- 
come equal  in  value  to  the  ordinary  product  of  the  barn-yard.  But 
a  much  more  practicable  mode  for  horticulturists — who  are  not  all 
farmers  with  cattle  yards — is  that  of  reducing  it  by  means  of  ashes, 
or  lime  slaked  with  brine. 

As  we  have  already  pointed  out  how  to  use  ashes,  and  as  we 
think,  after  what  we  have  observed  the  past  season,  the  latter  mode 
gives  a  compost  still  more  valuable  for  many  trees  than  ashes  and 
muck,  we  recommend  it  to  the  trial  of  all  those  forming  composts 
for  their  orchards  and  gardens.  The  better  mode  is  to  throw  out 
the  peat  from  the  swamps  now,  or  in  winter,  expose  it  to  the  action 
of  the  frost,  and,  early  in  the  spring,  to  mix  it  with  the  brine-slaked 
lime,  at  the  rate  of  four  bushels  to  the  cord.  It  should  be  allowed 
to  lie  about  six  weeks.  The  good  effects  of  this  compost,  when  ap- 
plied as  a  manure  to  the  kitchen  garden,  or  mixed  with  the  soil  in 
planting  trees,  are  equally  striking  and  permanent. 

We  cannot  let  the  opportunity  pass  by  without  saying  a  word 
or  two  about  that  much  lauded  and  much  abused  substance — guano. 
Nothing  is  more  certain  than  that,  in  Peru  and  England,  this  is  the 
best  of  all  manures  ;  or  that  in  the  United  States,  as  it  has  hitherto 
been  used,  it  is  one  of  the  worst.  Now,  as  a  substance  cannot  thus 
wholly  change  its  nature  in  these  different  countries  without  some 
good  reason,  we  are  naturally  led  to  inquire,  what  is  the  secret  of 
its  success  ? 


HOW  TO  ENRICH  THE  SOIL. 


401 


If  we  recall  to  mind  the  facts,  that  in  Peru,  guano  is  no  sooner 
applied  than  the  land  is  irrigated,  and  that  in  England  no  sooner  is 
it  spread  over  the  land  than  a  shower  commences ;  and  that  this 
shower,  or  something  very  near  akin  to  it,  keeps  itself  up  all  sum- 
mer long,  in  the  latter  country  ;  and  if  we  then  recollect,  that  in  the 
middle  States,  five  summers  out  of  six,  any  substance  applied  near 
the  surface  of  the  ground  is  as  dry  as  a  snuff-box,  for  the  most  part 
of  the  time,  from  June  to  September,  we  shall  not  be  greatly  at  a 
loss  to  know  why  so  many  persons,  in  this  country,  believe  guano  to 
be  nothing  more  or  less  than  a  "  humbug." 

If  any  very  good  proof  of  this  were  wanted,  we  need  go  no  fur- 
ther than  to  the  exotic  florists  in  our  cities,  who  cultivate  their  plants 
in  pots,  for  their  experience.  They  are  nearly  the  only  class  of 
cultivators  among  us  who  are  sturdy  champions  for  the  use  of  guana 
The  reason  is  plain.  They  use  it  only  in  the  liquid  state,  and  apply 
it  so  as  to  give  the  plants  under  their  care  every  now  and  then  a 
good  wholesome  drink, — a  thorough  soaking  of  a  sort  of  soup  more 
relishing  to  them  than  any  in  M.  Soyer's  new  cookery  book,  to  an 
epicure  in  a  London  club-house. 

Now  it  is  quite  impossible  for  an  American  cultivator  to  do  any 
thing  worth  mentioning,  in  the  way  of  watering  his  trees  or  crops 
with  liquid  guano ;  partly  because  labor  is  too  dear,  but  mainly  be- 
cause the  air  is  so  dry  and  hot,  that  in  a  few  hours  the  earth  is  drier 
than  before  ;  and  so  all  good  effects  are  at  an  end.  What  then  is 
to  be  done,  to  enable  us  to  use  guano  with  success  ? 

We  answer  in  a  few  words.    Use  it  in  the  autumn. 

We  know  this  is  quite  contrary  to  the  advice  of  previous  writers, 
and  that  it  will  be  considered  by  many  a  great  waste  of  riches.  But 
our  advice  is  founded  on  experience, — an  ounce  of  which,  in  such  a 
matter  as  this,  is  worth  a  ton  of  theory  drawn  from  observation  in 
other  climates. 

After  having  tried  guano  in  various  ordinary  modes,  at  the  usual 
season,  and  with  so  little  satisfaction  as  to  find  ourselves  among  the 
skeptics  as  to  its  merits  for  this  country,  we  at  last  made  trial  of  it  in 
the  autumn.  We  spread  it  over  the  soil  of  the  kitchen  garden,  be- 
fore digging  it  up  at  the  approach  of  winter,  and,  to  our  astonish- 
ment, found  our  soil  so  treated  more  productive,  even  in  very  dry 


408 


AGRICULTURE. 


seasons,  than  we  had  ever  known  it  before.  "We  have  also  recom- 
mended it  as  an  autumnal  manure  for  enfeebled  fruit  trees  (turning 
it  under  the  surface  at  once  with  a  spade),  and  find  it  wonderfully 
improved  in  luxuriance  and  vigor.  In  short,  our  observations  for 
the  past  two  years  have  firmly  convinced  us,  that  in  all  parts  of  the 
country,  where  the  climate  is  hot  and  dry  from  June  to  October, 
guano  should  be  used  in  the  autumn.  Applied  at  that  season,  and 
turned  under  the  surface  by  the  plough  or  spade,  so  as  not  to  waste 
its  virtues  in  the  air,  or  by  surface  rains,  its  active  qualities  are  gra- 
dually absorbed  by  the  soil,  and,  so  far  from  being  lost,  are  only 
rendered  more  completely  soluble,  and  ready  for  feeding  the  plants 
when  the  spring  opens. 

Guano,  applied  as  a  top-dressing,  or  near  the  surface,  in  the 
spring,  is  undoubtedly  a  manure  of  little  permanence, — generally 
lasting  only  one  season ;  for  it  always  loses  much  of  its  virtue  in  the 
atmosphere.  But  when  buried  beneath  the  surface,  it  becomes  in- 
corporated with  the  soil,  and  its  good  effects  last  several  seasons. 

The  common  rate  of  manuring  farm  lands  is  three  hundred 
pounds  of  guano  to  the  acre.  But  when  old  gardens  are  to  be  ma- 
nured, or  worn-out  orchards  or  fruit-yards  renovated,  we  find  six 
hundred  pounds  a  better  dressing.  We  would  recommend  its  use 
at  any  time  between  the  present  moment  and  the  frosts  of  winter. 
It  should  be  spread  evenly  over  the  surface,  and  immediately  turned 
at  least  three  inches  below  it. 

At  the  present  price  of  guano,  it  is  certainly  the  cheapest  of  all 
manures  to  be  bought  in  the  market ;  and  as  it  is  undeniably  richer 
in  all  the  elements  necessary  for  most  crops  than  any  other  single 
substance,  it  deserves  to  have  a  more  thorough  trial  at  the  hands  'of 
the  American  public.  We  commend  it  anew  to  all  those  who  have 
once  failed,  and  beg  them  to  try  it  once  more,  using  it  in  the 
autumn. 

The  large  proportion  of  phosphate  of  lime  which  exists  in  Peru- 
vian guano,  makes  it  very  valuable  for  fruit-growers ;  and  a  good 
dressing  of  guano — so  that  it  visibly  covers  the  surface  under  each 
tree — dug  under  during  the  month  of  November,  will  certainly  give 
a  most  thrifty  and  healthy  start  to  the  next  season's  growth,  as  well 
as  prepare  the  tree  for  the  highest  state  of  productiveness.  The 


HOW  TO  ENRICH  THE  SOIL. 


409 


concentrated  form  of  guano,  saving,  as  it  does,  so  much  labor  in 
carriage  and  spreading  over  the  soil,  is  no  small  recommendation  in 
its  favor  to  those  whose  finances  admonish  them  to  practise  economy 
of  means  and  time. 

We  might  enlarge  upon  manures,  so  as  to  occupy  volumes. 
But  it  will  suffice  for  the  present,  if  we  have  drawn  the  attention  of 
our  readers  to  the  fact,  that  food  must  be  supplied,  and  that  the 
present  is  the  time  to  set  about  it. 


V. 


A  CHAPTER  ON  AGRICULTURAL  SCHOOLS. 

December,  1849. 

"  ~]\/rOVAT>LE  property,  or  capital,  may  procure  a  man  all  the 
JAjL  advantages  of  wealth;  but  property  is  land  gives  him 
much  more  than  this.  It  gives  him  a  place  in  the  domain  of  the 
world ;  it  unites  his  life  to  the  life  which  animates  all  creation. 
Money  is  an  instrument  by  which  man  can  procure  the  satisfaction 
of  his  wants  and  his  wishes.  Landed  property  is  the  establishment 
of  man  as  sovereign  in  the  midst  of  nature.  It  satisfies  not  only  his 
wants  and  his  desires,  but  tastes  deeply  implanted  in  his  nature.  For 
his  family,  it  creates  that  domestic  country  called  home,  with  all  the 
loving  sympathies  and  all  the  future  hopes  and  projects  which  peo- 
ple it.  And  whilst  property  in  land  is  more  consonant  than  any 
other  to  the  nature  of  man,  it  also  affords  a  field  of  activity  the  most 
favorable  to  his  moral  development,  the  most  suited  to  inspire  a  just 
sentiment  of  his  nature  and  his  powers.  In  almost  all  the  other 
trades  and  professions,  whether  commercial  or  scientific,  success  ap- 
pears to  depend  solely  on  himself — on  his  talents,  address,  prudence 
and  vigilance.  In  agricultural  life,  man  is  constantly  in  the  pre- 
sence of  God,  and  of  his  power.  Activity,  talents,  prudence  and 
vigilance,  are  as  necessary  here  as  elsewhere  to  the  success  of  his 
labors  ;  but  they  are  evidently  no  less  insufficient  than  they  are  ne- 
cessary. It  is  God  who  rules  the  seasons  and  the  temperature,  the 
sun  and  the  rain,  and  all  those  phenomena  of  nature  which  deter- 
mine the  success  or  the  failure  of  the  labors  of  man  on  the  soil 
which  he  cultivates.  There  is  no  pride  which  can  resist  this  de- 
pendence, no  address  which  can  escape  it.    Nor  is  it  only  a  senti 


A  CHAPTER  ON  AGRICULTURAL  SCHOOLS. 


411 


ment  of  humanity,  as  to  his  power  over  his  own  destiny,  which  is 
thus  inculcated,  upon  man ;  he  leams  also  tranquillity  and  patience. 
He  cannot  natter  himself  that  the  most  ingenious  inventions,  or  the 
most  restless  activity,  will  secure  his  success ;  when  he  has  done  ail 
that  depends  upon  himself  for  the  cultivation  and  fertilization  of  the 
soil,  he  must  wait  with  resignation.  The  more  profoundly  we  ex- 
amine the  situation  in  which  man  is  placed,  hy  the  possession  and 
cultivation  of  the  soil,  the  more  do  we  discover  how  rich  it  is  in 
salutary  lessons  to  his  reason,  and  benign  influences  on  his  charac- 
ter. Men  do  not  analyze  these  facts  ;  but  they  have  an  instinctive 
sentiment  of  them,  which  powerfully  contributes  to  the  peculiar  re- 
spect in  which  they  hold  property  in  land,  and  to  the  preponder- 
ance which  that  kind  of  property  enjoys  over  every  other.  This 
preponderance  is  a  natural,  legitimate,  and  salutary  fact,  which,  espe- 
cially in  a  great  country,  society  at  large  has  a  strong  interest  in 
recognizing  and  respecting." 

We  have  quoted  this  sound  and  excellent  expose,  of  the  import- 
ance and  dignity  of  the  landed  interest,  from  a  late  pamphlet  by  a 
great  continental  statesman,  only  to  draw  the  attention  of  our  agri- 
cultural class  to  their  position  in  all  countries — whether  monarchical 
or  republican — and  especially  to  the  fact,  that  upon  the  intelligence 
and  prosperity  of  the  owners  of  the  soil,  here,  depend  largely  the 
strength  and  security  of  our  government,  and  the  well  working  of 
most  of  its  best  institutions. 

Where,  then,  must  we  look  for  the  explanation  of  the  fact,  that 
in  every  country  the  cultivators  of  the  soil  are  the  last  to  avail  them- 
selves of  the  advantages  of  skill  and  science  ?  That  every  where 
they  are  the  last  to  demand  of  government  a  share  of  those  benefits 
which  are  continually  heaped  upon  less  important,  but  more  saga- 
cious and  more  clamorous  branches  of  the  body  politic  ? 

Is  it  because,  obliged  to  trust  largely  to  nature  and  Providence, 
they  are  less  active  in  seizing  the  advantages  of  education  than 
those  whose  intellect,  or  whose  inventive  powers,  are  daily  tasked 
for  their  support,  and  who  cultivate  their  powers  of  mind  in  order 
to  live  by  their  exercise  ? 

These  are  pertinent  questions  at  this  moment ;  for  it  is  evident 
that  we  are  on  the  eve  of  a  great  change  in  the  future  position  and 


412 


AGRICULTURE. 


influence  of  the  agricultural  class  in  this  country.  The  giant  that 
tills  the  soil  is  gradually  wakening  into  conscious  activity  ;  he  per- 
ceives his  own  resources ;  he  begins  to  feel  that  upon  his  shoulders 
rests  the  state  ;  that  from  his  labor  come  the  material  forces  that 
feed  the  national  strength ;  that  from  his  loins  are  largely  drawn 
the  strong  men  that  give  force  and  stability  to  great  impulses  and 
sound  institutions  in  republican  America. 

Is  it  to  be  supposed  that  with  this  newly  awakening  conscious- 
ness of  the  meaning  and  value  of  his  life,  the  farmer — the  owner  of 
the  soil  in  America — is  not  to  seize  any  advantages  to  develope  his 
best  faculties  ?  Does  any  thinking  man  believe  that  such  a  class 
will  continue  to  plough  and  delve  in  an  ignorant  routine,  in  an  age 
when  men  force  steam  to  almost  annihilate  space  and  lightning  to 
outrun  time  ? 

And  this  brings  us  at  once  to  the  great  topic  of  the  day,  with 
the  farmer — agricultural  schools. 

Now,  that  it  is  confidently  believed  that  we  are  to  have  a  great 
agricultural  school  in  the  State  of  New- York — a  school  which  will 
probably  be  the  prototype  of  many  in  the  other  States — some  diver- 
sity of  opinion  exists  as  to  the  character  of  that  school. 

"  Let  it  be  a  school  for  practical  farming — a  school  in  which 
farmers'  sons  shall  be  taught  how  to  plough  and  mow,  and  '  make 
both  ends  meet,'  and  show  farmers  how  they  can  make  money," 
says  one. 

"  Give  us  a  school  in  which  the  science  of  agriculture  shall  be 
taught,  where  the  farmer's  son  shall  be  made  a  good  chemist,  a 
good  mathematician,  a  good  naturalist, — yes,  and  even  taught 
Greek  and  Latin,  etc.,  so  that  he  shall  be  as  well  educated  as  any 
gentleman's  son,"  says  the  second. 

"A  farm  school  ought  to  be  able  to  support  itself,  or  it  is  worth 
nothing,"  says  a  third. 

"  It  should  be  liberally  endowed  by  the  State,  so  as  to  secure 
the  best  talent  in  the  country,  or  it  will  be  the  nest  of  charlatans," 
says  a  fourth. 

"  It  should  be  a  model  farm,  where  only  the  best  practice  and 
the  most  profitable  modes  of  cultivation  should  be  seen,"  says  a 
fifth. 


A  CHAPTER  ON  AGRICULTURAL  SCHOOLS. 


413 


"  It  should  be  an  experimental  farm,  where  all  the  new  theories 
could  be  tested,  in  order  to  find  out  what  is  of  real  value,"  says 
a  sixth. 

And  thus,  there  is  no  end  to  the  variety  of  projects  for  an  agri- 
cultural school, — each  man  building  on  a  different  platform. 

Yet  there  must  be  some  real  and  solid  foundation  on  which  to 
erect  the  edifice  of  a  great  educational  institution  for  farmers.  And 
we  imagine  these  supposed  differences  of  opinion  may  all  be  recon- 
ciled, if  we  examine  a  little  the  sources  from  whence  they  originate. 

Agriculture  is  both  a  science  and  an  art.  It  may  be  studied  in 
the  closet,  the  laboratory,  the  lecture-room ;  so  that  a  man  may 
have  a  perfect  knowledge  of  it  in  his  head,  and  not  know  how  to 
perform  well  a  single  one  of  its  labors  in  the  field ;  or  it  may  be 
gained  by  rote  in  the  fields,  by  one  who  cannot  give  you  the  reason 
for  the  operation  of  a  single  law  of  nature  which  it  involves.  The 
first  is  mere  theory — the  second,  mere  practice. 

It  is  easy  to  see,  that  he  who  is  only  a  theorist  is  no  more  likely 
to  raise  good  crops  profitably,  than  a  theoretical  swimmer  is  to  cross 
the  Hellespont  like  Leander ;  and  that  the  mere  practical  farmer  is 
as  little  likely  to  improve  on  what  he  has  learned  by  imitation,  as 
his  horse  is  to  invent  a  new  mode  of  locomotion. 

The  difference  of  opinion,  regarding  the  nature  or  the  province 
of  an  agricultural  school,  seems  mainly  to  grow  out  of  the  different 
sides  from  which  the  matter  is  viewed — whether  the  advocate  favors 
science  or  practice  most, — forgetting  that  the  well-educated  agri- 
culturist should  combine  in  himself  both  the  science  and  the  art 
which  he  professes. 

The  difference  between  knowledge  and  wisdom  is  nowhere  better 
illustrated  than  in  a  mixed  study,  like  agriculture.  Knowledge 
may  be  either  theoretical  or  practical ;  but  wisdom  is  "  knowledge 
put  in  action"  What  the  agricultural  school,  which  this  age  and 
country  now  demands,  must  do  to  satisfy  us,  is  to  teach — not  alone 
the  knowledge  of  the  books — not  alone  the  practice  of  the  fields,  but 
that  agricultural  wisdom  which  involves  both,  and  which  can  never 
be  attained  without  a  large  development  of  the  powers  of  the  pupil 
in  both  directions.  His  head  and  hands  must  work  together.  He 
must  try  all  things  that  promise  well,  and  know  the  reason  of  his 


414 


AGRICULTURE. 


failure  as  well  as  his  success.  To  this  end,  he  must  not  be  in  the 
hands  of  quack  chemists  and  quack  physiologists  in  the  lecture 
halls,  or  those  of  chimerical  farmers  or  dull  teamsters  in  the  fields. 
Hence,  the  State  must  insist  upon  having,  for  teachers,  only  the 
ablest  men ;  men  who  will  teach  wisely,  whether  it  be  chemistry  or 
ploughing, — teach  it  in  the  best  and  most  thorough  manner,  so 
that  it  may  become  wisdom  for  the  pupil.  Such  men  are  always 
successful  in  their  own  sphere  and  calling,  and  can  no  more  be  had 
for  the  asking  than  one  can  have  the  sun  and  stars.  They  must  be 
sought  for  and  carried  off  by  violence,  and  made  to  understand  that 
the  State  has  a  noble  work  for  them,  which  she  means  to  have 
rightly  and  well  done. 

To  achieve  this,  an  agricultural  school  must  be  planned,  neither 
with  a  lavish  nor  a  niggardly  spirit.  As  agriculture  is  especially 
an  industrial  art,  the  manual  labor  practice  of  that  art  should  be  an 
inevitable  part  of  the  education  and  discipline  of  the  pupils.  But 
to  base  the  operation  of  the  school  upon  the  plan  of  immediate 
profit,  in  all  its  branches,  solely,  would,  we  conceive,  cut  off  in  a 
great  degree  the  largest  source  of  profit  to  the  country  at  large. 
The  pupils  would  leave  the  school  either  as  practical  fanners  alter  a 
single  model,  or  they  would  leave  it  with  their  heads  full  of  unsatis- 
fied longings  after  theories  which  they  had  not  been  permitted  to 
work  out.  They  would  be  destitute  of  that  wisdom  which  comes 
only  from  knowledge  and  experience  combined,  and  would  go  home 
only  to  fail  in  applying  a  practice  suited  to  a  different  soil  from 
their  own,  or  to  indulge  (at  a  large  personal  loss)  theories  which 
might  have  been  for  ever  settled  in  company  with  a  hundred  others, 
at  the  smallest  possible  cost  to  the  State. 

We  rejoice  to  see  the  awakened  zeal  of  the  fanners  of  the  State 
of  New- York,  in  this  subject  of  agricultural  education.  We  rejoice 
to  find  a  large  majority  of  our  legislature  warmly  seconding  and 
supporting  their  wishes ;  and  most  of  ah,  we  rejoice  to  see  a  gov- 
ernor who  unceasingly  urges  upon  our  law-makers  the  value  and 
necessity  of  a  great  agricultural  school.  One  of  our  contemporaries 
— the  editor  of  the  Working  Farmer — has  aptly  remarked  that 
Washington  was  our  only  great  statesman  who  had  "  the  moral 
courage  to  advocate  the  rights  of  farmers.    Statesmen  mistake  the 


A  CHAPTER  ON  AGRICULTURAL  SCHOOLS. 


415 


more  apparent  praise  of  other  classes  for  the  praise  of  the  majority." 
If,  however,  the  views  of  Hamilton  Fish,  regarding  this  subject,  are 
carried  out  by  the  legislature  of  this  State,  the  people  will  owe  him 
a  great  debt  of  gratitude,  for  urging  the  formation  of  an  educational 
institution,  which  will,  both  directly  and  indirectly,  do  more  to  ele- 
vate the  character  of  the  great  industrial  class  of  the  nation,  and 
develope  the  agricultural  wealth  of  the  country  at  large,  than  any 
step  which  has  been  taken  since  the  foundation  of  the  republic. 

An  agricultural  college,  for  the  complete  education  of  farmers, 
where  the  wisest  general  economy  of  farming,  involving  all  its  main 
scientific  and  practical  details,  successfully  established  in  the  State 
of  New- York,  will  be  the  model  and  type  of  a  similar  institution  in 
every  State  in  the  Union.  Its  influence  will  be  speedily  felt  in  all 
parts  of  the  country  ;  and  it  is  therefore  of  no  little  importance  that 
the  plan  adopted  by  the  legislature  should  be  one  worthy  of  the  ob- 
ject in  view,  and  the  ripeness  of  the  times. 

Above  all,  when  a  good  plan  is  adopted,  let  it  not  be  rendered 
of  little  value  by  being  intrusted  for  execution  to  the  hands  of  those 
who  stand  ready  to  devour  the  loaves  and  fishes  of  State  patronage. 
It  is  easy  to  devise,  but  it  is  hard  to  execute  wisely ;  and  we  warn 
the  farmers  in  our  legislature,  the  State  Agricultural  Society 
(which  has  already  done  such  earnest  service  in  this  good  cause), 
and  the  Executive,  to  guard  against  a  failure  in  a  great  and  wise 
scheme,  by  intrusting  its  execution  to  any  but  those  whose  compe- 
tence to  the  task  is  beyond  the  shadow  of  a  doubt. 


VI. 


A  FEW  WORDS  ON  THE  KITCHEN  GARDEN. 

April,  1848. 

THE  Kitchen  Garden  is  at  once  the  most  humble  and  the  most 
useful  department  of  horticulture.  It  can  no  more  be  allowed 
to  stand  still  than  the  sun  himself.  Luckily  (or  unluckily),  man 
must  eat ;  and,  omnivorous  as  he  is,  he  must  gather  food  from  both 
the  animal  and  the  vegetable  kingdom. 

Now  there  are,  we  trust,  few  of  our  readers  who  need  an  argu- 
ment to  prove  what  a  wide  difference  is  very  often  found  between 
vegetables  grown  in  different  gardens ;  how  truly  the  products  of  one 
shall  be  small,  tough,  and  fibrous,  and  those  of  another,  large,  ten- 
der, and  succulent.  Sometimes  the  former  defects  are  owing  to  bad 
culture,  but  more  frequently  to  unsuitable  soil.  It  is  to  this  latter 
condition  of  things  that  we  turn,  with  the  hope  of  saying  something 
which,  if  not  new,  shall  at  least  be  somewhat  useful,  and  to  the 
point. 

Nothing,  in  any  temperate  climate,  is  easier  than  the  general  culti- 
vation of  vegetables  in  most  parts  of  the  United  States.  With  our 
summer  sun,  equal  in  heat  and  brilliancy  to  that  of  the  equator,  we  can 
grow  the  beans  of  Lima,  the  melons  of  the  Mediterranean,  the  toma- 
toes and  egg-plants  of  South  America,  without  hot-beds  ;  and  with 
such  ease  and  profusion  that  it  fills  a  newly  arrived  English  or  French 
gardener  with  the  most  unqualified  astonishment.  Hence,  in  all  good 
soils,  with  a  smaller  amount  of  labor  than  is  elsewhere  bestowed  in 
the  same  latitudes,  our  vegetables  are  produced  in  the  most  prodigal 
abundance. 


A  FEW  WORDS  ON  THE  KITCHEN  GARDEN. 


417 


But  now  for  the  exceptions.  Every  man  cannot  "  locate "  him- 
self in  precisely  that  position  where  the  best  soil  is  to  be  found.  Cir- 
cumstances, on  the  contrary,  often  force  us  to  build  houses,  and  make 
kitchen  gardens,  where  Dame  Nature  evidently  never  contemplated 
such  a  thing ;  where,  in  fact,  instead  of  the  rich,  deep  accumulations 
of  fertile  soil,  that  she  frequently  offers  us  in  this  country,  she  has 
only  given  us  the  "  short  commons"  allowance  of  sand  or  clay. 

The  two  kinds  of  kitchen  gardens  among  us,  which  most  demand 
skill  and  intelligent  labor,  are  those  which  are  naturally  too  sandy 
or  too  clayey.  It  is  not  difficult,  at  a  glance,  to  see  how  these  might 
be,  and  ought  to  be  treated  to  improve  them  greatly.  But  we  have 
observed — such  is  the  foree  of  habit — that  nine-tenths  of  those  who 
have  gardens  of  this  description,  go  on  in  the  same  manner  as  their 
neighbors  who  have  the  best  soil, — manuring  and  cultivating  pre- 
cisely in  the  ordinary  way,  and  then  grumbling  in  quite  a  different 
mode  about  short  crops,  and  poor  vegetables,  instead  of  setting  about 
remedying  the  evil  in  good  earnest. 

The  natural  remedy  for  a  heavy  clay  soil  in  a  kitchen  garden,  is 
to  mix  sand  with  it.  This  acts  like  a  charm  upon  the  stubborn 
alumina,  and,  allowing  the  atmospheric  influences  to  penetrate  where 
they  were  formerly  shut  out,  gives  a  stimulus,  or  rather  an  opportu- 
nity, to  vegetable  growth,  which  quickly  produces  its  result  in  the 
quantity  and  quality  of  the  crops. 

But  it  not  unfrequently  happens  that  sand  is  not  to  be  had 
abundantly  and  cheaply  enough  to  enable  the  proprietor  of  mode- 
rate means  to  effect  this  beneficial  change.  In  this  case,  we  propose 
to  the  kitchen  gardener  to  achieve  his  object  by  another  mode, 
equally  efficient,  and  so  easy  and  cheap  as  to  be  within  the  reach  of 
almost  every  one. 

This  is,  to  alter  the  texture  of  too  heavy  s5ils,  by  burning  a  por- 
tion of  the  clay. 

Very  few  of  our  practical  gardeners  seem  to  be  aware  of  two 
important  facts.  First,  that  clay,  when  once  burnt,  never  regains 
its  power  of  cohesion,  but  always  remains  in  a  pulverized  state ;  and 
therefore  is  just  as  useful,  mechanically,  in  making  a  heavy  soil 
light,  as  sand  itself.  Second,  that  burnt  clay,  by  its  power  of  attract- 
ing from  the  atmosphere  those  gases  which  are  the  food  of  vege- 


418 


AGRICULTURE. 


tables,  is  really  a  most  excellent  manure  itself.  Hence,  in  any  ttlayey 
kitchen  garden,  where  brush,  faggots,  or  refuse  fuel  of  any  descrip- 
tion can  be  had,  there  is  no  reason  why  its  cold  compact  soil  should 
not  be  turned  at  once,  by  this  process  of  burning  the  clay,  into  one 
comparatively  light,  warm,  and  productive.* 

The  difficulty  which  stands  in  the  way  of  the  kitchen  gardener, 
who  has  to  contend  with  a  very  light  and  too  sandy  soil,  is  its  want 
of  capacity  for  retaining  moisture,  and  the  consequent  failure  of  the 
summer  crops. 

In  some  instances,  this  is  very  easily  remedied.  We  mean  in 
those  cases  where  a  loam  or  heavier  subsoil  lies  below  the  surface. 
Trenching,  or  subsoil-ploughing,  by  bringing  up  a  part  of  the  alu- 
mina from  below,  and  mixing  it  with  the  sand  of  the  surface  soil, 
remedies  the  defect  very  speedily.  But,  where  the  subsoil  is  no  bet- 
ter than  the  top,  or  perhaps  even  worse,  there  are  but  two  modes  of 
overcoming  this  bad  constitution  of  the  soil.  One  of  those,  is  to 
grasp  the  difficulty  at  once,  by  applying  a  coat  of  clay  to  the  surface 

*  A  simple  mode  of  burning  clay  in  the  kitchen  garden  is  the  following : 
Make  a  circle  of  eight  or  ten  feet  in  diameter,  by  raising  a  "wall  of  sods  a 
couple  of  feet  high.  Place  a  few  large  sticks  loosely  crosswise  in  the  bottom, 
and  upon  those  pile  faggots  or  brush,  and  set  fire  to  the  whole.  As  soon  as 
it  is  well  lighted,  commence  throwing  on  lumps  of  clay,  putting  on  as  much 
at  a  time  as  may  be  without  quite  smothering  the  fire.  As  soon  as  the  fire 
breaks  through  a  little,  add  more  brush,  and  then  cover  with  more  clay,  till 
the  heap  is  raised  as  high  as  it  can  be  conveniently  managed.  After  lying 
till  the  whole  is  cold,  or  nearly  so,  the  heap  should  be  broken  down,  and 
any  remaining  lumps  pulverized,  and  the  whole  spread  over  the  surface  and 
well  dug  in. 

"As  an  example,"  says  Loudon,  "of  the  strong  clayey  soil  of  a  garden 
having  been  improved  by  burning,  we  may  refer  to  that  of  Willersly  Castle, 
near  Mattock,  which  the,  gardener  there,  Mr.  Stafford,  has  rendered  equal 
in  friability  and  fertility  to  any  garden  soil  in  the  country.  "  When  I  first 
came  to  this  place,"  says  Mr.  Stafford,  "  the  garden  was  for  the  most  part  a 
strong  clay,  and  that  within  nine  inches  of  the  surface  ;  even  the  most  com- 
mon article  would  not  live  on  it;  no  weather  appeared  to  suit  it;  at  one 
time  being  covered  by  water,  at  another  time  rendered  impenetrable  by 
being  too  dry.  Having  previously  witnessed  the  good  effects  of  burning 
clods,  I  commenced  the  process,  and  produced,  in  a  few  days,  a  composition 
three  feet  deep,  and  equal,  if  not  superior,  to  any  soil  in  the  country.' " — 
Suburban  Horticulturist. 


A  FEW  WORDS  ON  THE  KITCHEN  GARDEN. 


419 


of  the  soil,  and  mixing  it  with  the  soil  as  you  would  manure  ;  the 
other  (a  less  expensive  and  more  gradual  process),  is  to  manure  the 
kitchen  garden  every  year  with  compost,  in  which  clay  or  strong 
loam  forms  a  large  proportion. 

It  may  seem,  to  many  persons,  quite  out  of  the  question  to  at- 
tempt to  ameliorate  sandy  soils  by  adding  clay.  But  it  is  surprising 
how  small  a  quantity  of  clay,  thoroughly  intermingled  with  the 
loosest  sandy  soil,  will  give  it  a  different  texture,  and  convert  it  into 
a  good  loam.  And  even  in  sandy  districts,  there  are  often  valleys 
and  low  places,  quite  near  the  kitchen  garden,  where  a  good  stock 
of  clay  lies  (perhaps  quite  unsuspected),  ready  for  uses  of  this  kind. 

In  the  Journal  of  the  Agricultural  Society  of  England,  a  case 
is  quoted  (vol  ii.,  p.  67),  where  the  soil  was  a  white  sand,  varying 
in  depth  from  one  to  four  feet ;  it  was  so  sterile  that  no  crops  could 
ever  be  grown  upon  it  to  profit.  By  giving  it  a  top-dressing  of  clay, 
at  the  rate  of  150  cubic  yards  to  the  acre,  the  whole  surface  of  the 
farm  so  treated  was  improved  to  the  depth  of  ten  or  twelve  inches, 
so  as  to  give  excellent  crops. 

Since  a  soil,  once  rendered  more  tenacious  in  this  way,  never 
loses  this  tenacity,  the  improvement  of  the  kitchen  garden,  where 
economy  is  necessary,  might  be  carried  on  gradually,  by  taking  one 
or  two  compartments  in  hand  every  year ;  thus,  in  a  gradual  man- 
ner, bringing  the  whole  surface  to  the  desired  condition. 

A  great  deal  may  also  be  done,  as  we  have  just  suggested,  by  a 
judicious  system  of  manuring  very  sandy  soils.  It  is  the  common 
practice  to  enrich  these  soils  precisely  like  all  others ;  that  is,  with 
the  lighter  and  more  heating  kinds  of  manures ;  stable-dung  for 
example.  Nothing  could  be  more  injudicious.  Every  particle  of 
animal  manure  used  in  too  light  a  soil  ought,  for  the  kitchen  garden, 
to  be  composted,  for  some  time  previously,  with  eight  or  ten  times 
its  bulk  of  strong  loam  or  clay.  In  this  way,  that  change  in  the 
soil,  so  much  to  be  desired,  is  brought  about ;  and  the  whole  mass 
of  clay-compost,  made  in  this  way,  is  really  equal  in  value,  for  such 
sandy  soils,  to  the  same  bulk  of  common  stable  manure. 

Whatever  the  soil  of  a  kitchen-garden,  our  experience  has 
taught  us  that  it  should  be  deep.  It  is  impossible  that  the  steady 
and  uniform  moisture  at  the  roots,  indispensable  to  the  continuous 


420 


AGRICULTURE. 


growth  of  many  crops,  during  the  summer  months,  can  be  main- 
tained in  a  soil  which  is  only  one  spade  deep.  Hence,  we  would 
trench  or  subsoil-plough  all  kitchen-gardens  (taking  care,  first,  that 
they  are  well  drained),  whether  sandy  or  clayey  in  texture.  We 
know  that  many  persons,  judging  from  theory  rather  than  practice, 
cannot  see  the  value  of  deepening  soils  already  too  porous.  But  we 
have  seen  its  advantages  strongly  marked  in  more  than  one  instance, 
and  therefore  recommend  it  with  confidence.  It  is  only  necessary 
to  examine  light  soils,  trenched  and  untrenched,  to  be  convinced  of 
this.  The  roots  in  the  former  penetrate  and  gather  nourishment 
from  twice  the  cubic  area  that  they  do  in  the  former ;  and  they  are 
not  half  so  easily  affected  by  the  atmospheric  changes  of  tempera- 
ture. 

Old  gardens,  that  have  been  long  cultivated,  are  greatly  im- 
proved by  trenching  and  reversing  the  strata  of  soil.  The  inorganic 
elements,  or  mineral  food  of  plants,  often  become  so  much  exhausted 
in  long  cultivated  kitchen  gardens,  that  only  inferior  crops  can  be 
raised,  even  with  abundant  supplies  of  animal  manure.  By  turning 
up  the  virgin  loam  of  the  subsoil,  and  exposing  it  to  the  action  of 
the  atmosphere,  its  gradual  decomposition  takes  place,  and  fresh 
supplies  of  lime,  potash,  etc.,  are  afforded  for  the  vigorous  growth 
of  plants. 

We  have  only  room  for  a  single  hint  more,  touching  the  kitchen 
garden.  This  is,  to  recommend  the  annual  use  of  salt,  in  moderate 
quantities,  sown  broadcast  over  the  whole  garden  early  in  the  spring, 
and  more  especially  on  those  quarters  of  it  where  vegetables  are  to 
be  planted  which  are  most  liable  to  the  attacks  of  insects  that  har- 
bor in  the  earth.  We  are  satisfied  that  salt,  spread  in  this  way, 
before  vegetation  has  commenced,  or  the  earth  is  broken  up  for 
sowing  seeds,  at  the  rate  of  ten  bushels  per  acre,  is  one  of  the  best 
possible  applications  to  the  soil. 

It  destroys  insects,  acts  specifically  on  the  strength  of  the  stems, 
and  healthy  color  of  the  foliage  of  plants,  assists  porous  soils  in 
collecting  and  retaining  moisture,  and  is  an  admirable  stimulant  to 
the  growth  of  many  vegetables.  In  all  the  Atlantic  States,  where 
it  is  easily  and  cheaply  procured,  it  ought,  therefore,  to  form  an 
annual  top-dressing  for  the  whole  kitchen  garden. 


VII. 


A  CHAT  IN  THE  KITCHEN  GARDEN. 

October,  1849. 

EDITOR.  We  find  you,  as  usual,  in  your  kitchen  garden. 
Admirable  as  all  the  rest  of  your  place  is,  your  own  fancy 
seems  to  centre  here.  Do  you  find  the  esculents  the  most  satisfac- 
tory of  your  various  departments  of  culture  ? 

Subscriber.  Not  exactly  that ;  but  I  find  while  the  shrubbery, 
the  lawn,  the  flowers,  and  even  the  fruit-trees,  are  well  cared  for 
and  made  much  of  by  my  family  and  my  gardener,  the  kitchen 
garden  is  treated  merely  as  a  necessity.  Now,  as  I  estimate  very 
highly  the  value  of  variety  and  excellence  in  our  culinary  vegeta- 
bles, I  take  no  little  interest  in  my  kitchen  garden,  so  that  at  last  it 
has  become  a  sort  of  hobby  with  me. 

Ed.  We  see  evidences  of  that  all  around  us.  Indeed,  we 
scarcely  remember  any  place  where  so  large  a  variety  of  excellent 
vegetables  are  grown  as  here.  Artichokes,  endive,  sea-kale,  cele- 
riac,  winter  melons  and  mushrooms,  and  many  other  good  and  rare 
things,  in  addition  to  what  we  usually  find  in  country  gardens. 

Sub.  And  what  a  climate  ours  is  for  growing  fine  vegetables. 
From  common  cabbages,  that  will  thrive  in  the  coldest  climate,  to 
egg-plants,  melons  and  tomatoes,  that  need  a  tropical  sun, — all  may 
be  so  easily  had  for  the  trouble  of -easy  culture  in  the  open  air; 
and  yet,  strange  to  say,  three-fourths  of  all  country  folks,  blessed 
with  land  in  fee  simple,  are  actually  ignorant  of  the  luxury  of  good 
vegetables,  and  content  themselves  with  potatoes,  peas,  beans  and 


422 


AGRICULTURE. 


corn ;  and  those,  perhaps,  of  the  poorest  and  least  improved  va 
rieties. 

Ed.  Still,  you  cannot  say  we  stand  still  in  these  matters.  Al- 
most every  year,  on  the  contrary,  some  new  species  or  variety  is 
brought  forward,  and,  if  it  prove  good,  is  gradually  introduced  into 
general  cultivation.  Look  at  the  tomato,  for  instance.  Twenty 
years  ago,  a  few  curious  amateurs  cultivated  a  specimen  or  two  of 
this  plant  in  their  gardens,  as  a  vegetable  curiosity  ;  and  the  visitor 
was  shown  the  "  love  apples  "  as  an  extraordinary  proof  of  the  odd 
taste  of  "  French  people,"  who  outraged  all  natural  appetites  by 
eating  such  odious  and  repulsive  smelling  berries.  And  yet,  at  the 
present  moment,  the  plant  is  grown  in  almost  every  garden  from 
Boston  to  New  Orleans ;  may  be  found  in  constant  use  for  three 
months  of  the  year  in  all  parts  of  the  country ;  and  is  cultivated 
by  the  acre  by  all  our  market  gardeners.  In  fact,  it  is  so  popular, 
that  it  would  be  missed  next  to  bread  and  potatoes. 

Sub.  Quite  right ;  and  a  most  excellent  and  wholesome  vegeta- 
ble it  is.  It  is  almost  unknown  in  England,  even  now ;  and,  in- 
deed, could  only  be  raised  by  the  aid  of  glass  in  that  country, — a 
proof  of  how  much  better  the  sun  shines  for  us  than  for  the  sub- 
jects of  her  majesty,  across  the  Channel.  But  there  is  another 
vegetable  which  you  see  here,  really  quite  as  deserving  as  the  to- 
mato, and  which  is  very  little  known  yet  to  the  cultivators  in  the 
country  generally.    I  mean  the  okra. 

Ed.  Yes.  It  is  truly  a  delicious  vegetable.  Whoever  has 
once  tasted  the  "  gumbo  soup,"  of  the  South,  of  which  the  okra  is 
the  indispensable  material,  has  a  recollection  of  a  good  thing,  which 
will  not  easily  slip  from  his  memory.  All  over  the  southern  States 
okra  is  cultivated,  and  held  in  the  highest  esteem. 

Sub.  And  there  is  no  reason  why  it  should  not  be  equally  so 
here.  Except  to  the  north  of  Albany,  it  wiU  thrive  perfectly  well, 
and  mature  an  abundance  of  its  pods,  with  no  trouble  but  that  of 
planting  it  in  a  warm  rich  soil.  See  what  a  handsome  sight  is  this 
plat,  filled  with  it,  though  only  ten  yards  square, — rich,  luxuriant 
leaves,  blossoms  nearly  as  pretty  as  an  African  hibiscus,  and  pods 
almost  as  delicate  and  delicious  as  an  East  India  bird's  nest.  It  has 
kept  my  family  in  materials  for  soups  and  stews  all  the  season,  to 


A  CHAT  IN  THE  KITCHEN  GARDEN. 


423 


say  nothing  of  our  stock  for  winter  use.  And  besides  being  so  ex- 
cellent, it  is,  do  you  know,  the  most  wholesome  of  all  vegetables  in 
summer. 

Ed.  We  know  its  mucilaginous  qualities  seem  intended  by  na- 
ture to  guard  the  stomach  against  all  ill  effects  of  summer  tempe- 
rature in  a  hot  climate.  How  do  you  account  for  its  being  so  little 
known,  though  it  has  been  in  partial  cultivation  nearly  as  long  as 
the  tomato  ? 

Sub.  From  the  fact  that  inexperienced  cooks  always  blunder 
about  the  proper  time  to  use  it.  They  pluck  it  when  the  pod  is 
two-thirds  grown  and  quite  firm,  so  that  it  colors  the  soup  dark,  and 
all  its  peculiar  excellence  is  lost.  Whoever  gathers  okra  should 
know  that,  like  sweet-corn,  it  must  be  in  its  tender,  "  milky  state,"  or 
it  is  not  fit  for  use.    A  day  too  old,  and  it  is  worthless. 

Ed.  You  spoke  just  now  of  okra  for  winter  use.  As  your 
menage  is  rather  famous  for  winter  vegetables,  we  must  beg  you  to 
make  a  clean  breast  of  it  to-day,  since  you  are  fairly  in  the  talking 
mood,  and  tell  us  something  about  them.  Begin  with  okra,  if  you 
please. 

Sub.  Nothing  so  simple.  To  prepare  most  vegetables  is,  by 
the  aid  of  our  plentiful  hot,  dry  weather,  as  easy  as  making  raisins 
in  Calabria.  You  have,  for  instance,  only  to  cut  the  okra  pods  into 
slices  or  cross  cuts,  half  an  inch  thick,  spread  them  out  on  a  board, 
or  string  them,  and  hang  them  up  in  an  airy  place  to  dry,  and  in  a 
few  days  they  will  be  ready  to  put  away  in  clean  paper  bags  for 
winter  use ;  when,  for  soups,  they  are  as  good  as  when  fresh  in 
summer. 

Ed.    At  what  age  do  you  take  the  pods  for  drying  ? 

Sub.    Exactly  in  the  same  tender  state  as  for  use  when  fresh. 

Ed.  And  the  delicious  Lima  beans  which  you  gave  us — when 
we  dined  with  you  last  Christmas  Day — as  green,  plump,  fresh  and 
excellent  as  if  just  taken  from  the  vines  ? 

Sub.  That  is  still  easier.  You  have  only  to  take  the  green 
beans  and  spread  them  thinly  on  the  floor  of  the  garret,  or  an  airy 
loft ;  they  will  dry  Without  farther  trouble,  than  turning  them  over 
once  or  twice.  To  have  them  in  the  best  condition,  they  should  be 
gathered  a  little  younger  than  they  are  usually  for  boiling  in  sum- 


424 


AGRICULTURE. 


mer.  Lima  beans  are  so  easily  grown  and  prepared  for  winter  use, 
and  are  so  truly  excellent,  that  my  family  usually  dry  enough  for 
use  every  other  day  all  winter ;  and  they  are  so  fresh  and  tender 
(being  soaked  in  warm  water  for  twelve  hours  before  cooMng),  that 
I  have  frequently  some  little  difficulty  in  persuading  my  guests  at  a 
dinner  in  the  holidays,  that  I  have  not  a  forcing  house  for  beans, 
with  the  temperature  of  Lima  all  winter. 

Ed.  That  is  an  easy  and  simple  process,  and  its  excellence  we 
well  know  from  experience.  But,  best  of  all,  and  most  rare  of  all, 
is  the  tomato,  as  we  have  eaten  it  here,  in  mid-winter.  As  we  have 
seen  many  trials  in  preserving  this  capital  vegetable  for  winter  use, 
nearly  all  of  which  were  partly  or  wholly  failures,  pray  let  us  into  the 
secret  of  your  tomato  formula,  which  we  promise  not  to  repeat  to 
more  than  eight  or  ten  thousand  of  our  particular  friends  and 
readers. 

Sub.  You  are  heartily  welcome  to  tell  it  to  twenty  thousand. 
It  is  a  real  discovery  for  the  gourmand  in  winter,  who  loves  the 
pure,  genuine,  unalloyed  and  delicious  acid  flavor  of  the  Solarium 
Lycopersicum,  and  knows  how  greatly  it  adds  to  the  jriquancy  of  a 
beef-steak,  done  to  a  second,  and  reposing,  as  Christopher  North 
would  say,  in  the  mellow  richness  of  its  own  brown  juices. 

Ed.  Don't  grow  so  eloquent  over  the  remembrance  as  to  forget 
the  modus  operandi  of  drying.  Remember  we  must  stake  our  repu- 
tation on  its  being  equal  to  the  genuine  natural  berry,  when  it  is  of 
the  color  of  cornelian,  and  plucked  in  the  dew  of  a  July  morning. 

Sub.    I  remember.    Fust, — gather  the  tomatoes. 

Ed.    When  ? 

Sub.  When  they  are  quite  ripe,  least  full  of  water,  and  most 
full  of  the  tomato  principle ;  that  is  to  say,  in  sunny  weather  in 
July  or  August.  If  you  wait  till  September,  or,  rather,  till  the 
weather  is  so  cold  that  the  fruit  is  watery,  you  will  fail  in  the  pro- 
cess for  want  of  flavor. 

Ed.    Go  on. 

Sub.  Choose  tomatoes  of  small  or  only  moderate  size.  Scald 
them  in  boiling  water.  Next, — peel  them,  and  squeeze  them 
slightly.  Spread  them  on  earthen  dishes,  and  place  the  dishes  in  a 
brick  oven,  after  taking  the  bread  out.    Let  them  remain  there  till 


A  CHAT  IN  THE  KITCHEN  GARDEN. 


425 


the  next  morning.  Then  put  them  in  bags,  and  hang  them  in  a 
dry  place. 

Ed.  That  is  certainly  not  a  difficult  process,  and  may  be  put 
in  practice  every  baking  day  by  the  most  time-saving  farmer's  wife 
in  the  country.    And  the  cooking  ? 

Sub.  Is  precisely  like  that  of  the  fresh  tomato,  except  that  the 
dried  tomato  is  soaked  in  warm  water  a  few  hours  beforehand. 
For  soups,  it  may  be  used  without  preparation  ;  and  a  dish  of  this 
vegetable,  dried  in  this  way  and  stewed,  is  so  exactly  like  the  fresh 
tomatoes  in  appearance  and  flavor,  that  he  must  be  a  nice  connois- 
seur in  such  matters  who  could  tell  in  what  the  difference  consists. 

Ed.  We  can  vouch  most  entirely  for  that ;  and  after  thanking 
you  for  the  detail,  have  only  to  regret  that  we  could  not  have  pub- 
lished it  in  midsummer,  so  that  all  our  readers  could  have  had  a 
fine  dish  of  tomatoes  when  the  thermometer  is  down  below  zero. 

Sub.  By  steadily  pursuing  the  tomato  drying  every  baking 
day  in  July  and  August,  we  get  enough  to  enable  us  to  use  it  freely, 
and  even  profusely,  as  a  winter  vegetable ;  not  as  an  occasional  va- 
riety, but  a  good  heaping  dishful  very  often. 

Ed.  What  is  to  be  done  with  these  small  green  melons  which 
I  see  your  man  gathering  in  his  basket  ?  It  is  so  late  now  that 
they  will  not  ripen,  and  they  are  the  perquisites  of  the  pigs,  doubt- 
less. 

Sub.  You  never  made  a  greater  mistake.  For  the  pigs  !  Not 
if  they  were  Westphalia  all  over.  Why,  that  is  the  most  delicious 
vegetable  we  have,  at  this  season  of  the  year.  "  Butter  would  not 
melt  in  your  mouth"  more  quickly  than  that  vegetable,  as  you 
shall  have  it  served  up  on  my  table  to-day. 

Ed.    Pray,  what  do  you  mean  ? 

Sub.  That  these  tardy  after-crop  musk-melons,  trampled  under 
foot  and  fed  to  the  pigs,  are  the  greatest  delicacy  of  the  season. 

Ed.  Ericaseed,  I  suppose ;  or  "  cut  and  dried,"  for  winter 
use ! 

Sub.  By  no  means  ;  but  simply  cut  in  slices,  about  the  fourth 
of  an  inch  thick,  and  fried  exactly  in  the  same  manner  as  egg 
plants.  Whoever  tastes  them  so  prepared,  will  immediately  make 
a  memorandum  that  egg  plants  are  thenceforward  tabooed,  and  that 


426 


AGRICULTURE. 


melons,  "  rightly  understood,"  are  as  melting  and  savory  in  their 
tender  infancy,  as  they  are  luscious  and  sugary  in  their  ripe  ma- 
turity. 

Ed.  We  shall  be  glad  to  put  it  to  the  immediate  proof.  But 
we  must  bring  this  talk  to  a  close,  or  we  shall  be  suspected  of  hav- 
ing lost  all  taste  but  the  taste  for  the  flesh-pots  of  Egypt. 

Sub.  But  not  till  I  have  shown  you  my  plat  of  "  German 
greens,"  all  growing  for  use  next  March,  and  my  fine  Walcheren 
cauliflowers,  planted  late,  and  which  I  shall  "  lift "  at  the  first  smart 
frost,  and  carry  them  into  the  cellar  of  my  outbuildings,  where  they 
will  flower  and  give  me  the  finest  and  most  succulent  of  vegetables 
all  winter  long,  when  my  neighbors  have  only  turnips  and  Irish  po- 
tatoes. But  you  have  taught  the  public  how  to  manage  all  this  in 
the  previous  number  of  your  journal,  so  that  I  find  every  one 
begins  to  understand  that  it  is  as  easy  to  have  fine  cauliflowers  at 
Easter  as  Newtown  Pippins.  And  now  let  us  end  this  gossip  and 
take  a  turn  in  the  orchard,  where  I  must  show  you  my  Beurres  <uwl 
Bergamots. 


vm. 


WASHINGTON,  THE  FARMER. 

A  REVIEW. 

Letters  on  Agriculture,  from  His  Excellency  George  "Washington,  to  Ar- 
thur Young  and  Sir  John  Sinclair,  etc.  Edited  by  Franklin  Knight. 
"Washington,  1847.  Published  by  the  Editor.  New-York,  Baker  & 
Scribner.    1  vol.  quarto,  with  plates,  198  pp. 

FOR  a  long  time,  the  halo  of  Washington's  civil  and  military 
glory  has  kept  out  of  view  his  extraordinary  talent  in  other  di- 
rections. Mankind,  too,  are  so  reluctant  to  allow  great  men  the 
meed  of  greatness  in  more  than  one  sphere  of  action,  that  there  has, 
we  think,  always  been  a  national  want  of  faith  regarding  the  pre- 
eminence as  an  agriculturist,  to  which  Washington  is  most  unde- 
niably entitled. 

We  are  inclined  to  think  that,  considering  the  great  disadvan- 
tages of  the  time  in  which  he  lived,  he  was  one  of  the  wisest,  most 
successful,  and  most  scientific  farmers  that  America  has  ever  yet 
produced. 

Washington,  as  it  is  well  known,  was  a  very  large  landed  pro- 
prietor. Before  the  Revolution,  he  was  one  of  the  most  extensive 
tobacco  planters  in  Virginia.  His  crops  of  this  staple,  he  shipped 
in  his  own  name,  to  Liverpool  or  Bristol,  loading  the  vessels  that 
came  up  the  Potomac,  either  at  Mount  Vernon,  or  some  other  con- 
venient point.  In  return,  he  imported  from  his  agents  abroad,  im- 
proved agricultural  implements,  and  all  the  better  kinds  of  clothing, 
implements,  and  stores,  needed  in  the  domestic  economy  of  his  es- 


428 


AGRICULTURE. 


tate.  During  the  Eevolution,  although  necessarily  absent  from 
Mount  Vernon,  he  endeavored  to  carry  out  his  plans  by  frequent 
and  minute  directions  to  his  manager  there. 

No  sooner  had  the  war  closed,  than  Washington  immediately 
retired  to  his  beloved  Mount  Vernon,  and  was  soon  deeply  immersed 
in  the  cares  and  pleasures  of  the  life  of  an  extensive  landed  propri- 
etor. But  it  was  by  no  means  a  life  of  indolent  repose,  though 
upon  an  estate  large  enough  to  secure  him  in  the  possession  of 
every  comfort.  The  very  first  year  after  the  war,  he  directed  his 
attention  and  his  energies  to  the  improvement  of  the  mode  of  farm- 
ing then  in  vogue  in  the  whole  of  that  part  of  the  country. 

He  quickly  remarked,  that  the  system  of  the  tobacco  planters 
was  fast  exhausting  the  lands,  and  rendering  them  of  little  or  no 
value.  He  entered  into  correspondence  with  the  most  distinguished 
scientific  agriculturists  in  Great  Britain,  studied  the  ablest  treatises 
then  extant  abroad  on  that  subject,  and  immediately  earned  into 
practice  the  most  valuable  principles  which  he  could  draw  from  the 
soundest  theory  and  practice  then  known.  At  a  time  when  the 
planters  were  thinking  of  abandoning  their  worn-out  lands,  Wash- 
ington began  a  new  and  most  excellent  system  of  rotation  of  crops, 
based  on  a  careful  examination  of  the  qualities  of  the  soils,  on  his 
estate,  and  by  substituting  grains,  grass,  and  root  crops,  for  tobacco, 
he  soon  restored  the  soil  to  good  condition,  and  found  his  income 
materially  increasing,  while  bis  neighbors,  who  pursued  tbe  old  sys- 
tem, were  daily  growing  poorer. 

Nothing  was  more  remarkable,  among  the  trials  of  this  great 
man's  character,  and  nothing  contributed  more  to  his  success  in  all 
he  undertook,  than  the  complete  manner  in  which  he  first  mastered 
his  subject,  and  the  exact  method  in  which  be  afterwards  marked 
out  and  pursued  his  plans. 

In  farming,  this  was  evinced  in  the  thoroughly  systematic  course 
of  culture  which  he  adopted  on  his  Mount  Vernon  estate.  This 
estate  consisted  of  about  8000  acres,  of  which  over  2000  acres,  di- 
vided into  five  farms,  were  under  cultivation.  On  his  map  of  this 
estate,  every  field  was  numbered,  and  in  his  accompanying  agricul- 
tural field-book,  the  crops  were  assigned  to  each  field  for  several 
years  in  advance.    So  well  had  be  studied  tbe  nature  of  the  soils, 


WASHINGTON,  THE  FARMER. 


that  with  slight  subdivisions  and  experimental  deviations,  this  sci- 
entific system  of  rotation  was  pursued  with  great  success,  from  about 
1*785  to  the  close  of  his  life. 

After  about  four  years — the  most  agreeable,  doubtless,  of  his 
whole  life — passed  at  Mount  Vernon,  in  its  improved  condition,  he 
was  again  called,  by  the  spontaneous  voice  of  one  people  to  the 
Presidency.  Much  has  been  said  and  written  about  the  reluctance 
of  Cincinnatus  to  leave  his  «farm,  and  return  to  the  service  of  the 
Roman  Republic ;  but  the  sources  for  regret  in  his  position  must 
have  been  small,  compared  to  those  which  Washington  felt,  when 
he  left  Mount  Vernon  on  this  occasion.  The  farm  of  Cincinnatus, 
which  has  been  rendered  famous  in  classical  histoiy,  was  an  heredi- 
tary allotment  of  four  acres,  and  its  cultivation  was  part  of  the 
daily  toil  of  his  own  hands.  Mount  Vernon,  on  the  other  hand, 
was  one  of  the  largest  and  loveliest  estates  in  America ;  it  stood 
amid  the  rich  landscape  beauty  of  the  Potomac,  its  beautiful  lawns 
running  down  to  the  river,  its  serpentine  walks  of  shrubbery,  its 
fruit  and  flower-garden,  planted  by  its  master's  own  hands,*  and  its 
broad  acres  rendered  productive  by  an  intelligent  and  comprehen- 
sive system  of  agriculture  of  his  own  construction — think,  oh  ye 
who  have  never  thus  taken  root  in  the  soil,  how  hard  it  must  have 
been  for  Washington  the  Farmer,  to  surrender  again,  even  to  the 
flattering  wish  of  a  whole  nation,  the  life  that  he  so  much  loved,  for 
the  hard  yoke  of  what  he  felt  to  be  the  most  difficult  public 
service. 

It  is  the  best  proof,  of  how  thoroughly  devoted  by  natural  taste 
was  Washington  to  agriculture,  that  instead  of  leaving  Mount  Ver- 
non to  the  charge  of  the  excellent  agent  whom  he  had  well 
grounded  in  his  own  system  of  practice,  and  who  could  no  doubt 
have  continued  that  practice  with  success,  he  never  lost  sight  for  a 

*  Washington's  residence  exhibited  every  mark  of  the  cultivated  and 
refined  country  gentleman.  He  appears  to  have  had  considerable  taste  in 
ornamental  gardening ;  he  decorated  his  pleasure-grounds  with  much  effect : 
and  his  diary  shows  that  he  collected  and  planted  a  variety  of  rare  tree3 
and  shrubs  with  his  own  hands,  and  watched  their  growth  with  the  greatest 
interest.  He  employed  sMlful  gardeners,  and  pruning  was  one  of  his  favor- 
ite exercises. 


430  AGRICULTURE. 

moment,  amid  all  the  pressing  cares  of  public  life,  of  his  rural  home, 
or  his  favorite  occupation.  We  can  scarcely  give  a  better  idea  of 
the  man  and  his  system,  than  by  the  following  extract,  touching 
this  very  portion  of  his  life,  from  Sparks'  admirable  biography  : 

"  With  his  chief  manager  at  Mount  Vernon,  he  left  full  and  mi- 
nute directions  in  writing,  and  exacted  from  him  a  weekly  report, 
in  which  were  registered  the  transactions  of  each  day  on  all  the 
farms,  such  as  the  number  of  laborers  employed,  their  health  or 
sickness,  the  kind  and  quantity  of  work  executed,  the  progress  in 
planting,  sowing  or  harvesting  the  fields,  the  appearance  of  the 
crops  at  various  stages  of  their  growth,  the  effects  of  the  weather 
on  them,  and  the  condition  of  the  horses,  cattle  and  other  live  stock. 
By  these  details,  he  was  made  perfectly  acquainted  with  all  that 
was  done,  and  could  give  his  orders  with  almost  as  much  precision 
as  if  he  had  been  on  the  spot.  Once  a  week,  regularly,  and  some- 
times twice,  he  wrote  to  the  manager,  remarking  on  his  report  of 
the  preceding  week,  and  giving  new  directions.  These  letters  fre- 
quently extended  to  two  or  three  sheets,  and  were  always  written 
with  his  own  hand.  Such  was  his  laborious  exactness,  that  the  let- 
ter he  sent  away  was  usually  transcribed  from  a  rough  draft,  and  a 
press  copy  was  taken  of  the  transcript,  which  was  carefully  filed 
away  with  the  manager's  report,  for  his  future  inspection.  In  this 
habit,  he  persevered  with  unabated  diligence,  through  the  whole 
eight  years  of  his  Presidency,  except  during  the  short  visits  he  oc- 
casionally made  to  Mount  Vernon,  at  the  close  of  the  sessions  of 
Congress,  when  his  presence  could  be  dispensed  with  at  the  seat  of 
government.  He,  moreover,  maintained  a  large  correspondence  on 
Agriculture  with  gentlemen  in  Europe  and  America.  His  letters  to 
Sir  John  Sinclair,  Arthur  Young  and  Dr.  Anderson,  have  been 
published,  and  are  well  known.  Indeed  his  thoughts  never  seemed 
to  flow  more  freely,  nor  his  pen  move  more  easily,  than  when  he  was 
writing  on  Agriculture,  extolling  it  as  a  most  attractive  pursuit,  and 
describing  the  pleasure  derived  from  it,  and  its  superior  claims,  not 
only  on  the  practical  economist,  but  on  the  statesman  and  philan- 
thropist^ 

The  volume  before  us,  which  Mr.  Knight  has  given  to  the  pub- 
lic, in  a  very  handsome  quarto  form,  consists  mainly  of  the  corres- 


WASHINGTON,  THE  FARMER. 


431 


pondence  referred  to  in  the  preceding  quotation.  The  letters  to  Sir 
John  Sinclair  are  rendered  more  interesting  by  their  being  facsimiles, 
showing  the  fine  bold  handwriting  of  their  illustrious  author.  Be- 
sides, there  is  some  very  interesting  collateral  correspondence  by 
Jefferson,  Peters,  and  others,  throwing  additional  light  on  the  hus- 
bandry of  that  period.  Engraved  portraits  of  General  and  Mrs. 
Washington,  views  of  the  mansion  at  Mount  Vernon,  a  map  of  the 
farms,  etc.,  render  the  volume  more  complete  and  elegant. 

It  is  not  as  conveying  instruction  to  the  intelligent  agriculturist 
of  the  present  day,  that  we  commend  this  work  ;  for  the  art  and 
science  of  farming  have  made  extraordinary  progress  since  this  early 
era  in  the  history  of  our  country.  But  it  is  as  revealing  a  most 
interesting  and  little  known  portion  of  Washington's  life  and  char- 
acter, in  which  his  own  tastes  were  more  peculiarly  gratified,  and  in 
which  he  was  no  less  successful,  than  in  any  other  phase  of  his  won- 
derfully great  and  pure  life. 


FfiUIT. 


28 


FEU  I  T. 


I. 

A  FEW  WORDS  ON  FRUIT  CULTURE. 

July,  1851. 

BY  far  the  most  important  branch,  of  horticulture  at  the  present 
moment  in  this  country,  is  the  cultivation  of  Fruit.  The  soil 
and  climate  of  the  United  States  are,  on  the  whole,  as  favorable  to 
the  production  of  hardy  fruits  as  those  of  any  other  country — and 
our  northern  States,  owing  to  the  warmth  of  the  summer  and  the 
clearness  of  the  atmosphere,  are  far  more  prolific  of  fine  fruits  than 
the  north  of  Europe.  The  American  farmer  south  of  the  Mohawk, 
has  the  finest  peaches  for  the  trouble  of  planting  and  gathering — 
while  in  England  they  are  luxuries  only  within  the  reach  of  men  of 
fortune,  and  even  in  Paris,  they  can  only  be  ripened  upon  walls. 
By  late  reports  of  the  markets  of  London,  Paris,  and  New- York,  we 
find  that  the  latter  city  is  far  more  abundantly  supplied  with  fruit 
than  either  of  the  former — though  finer  specimens  of  almost  any 
fruit  may  be  found  at  very  high  prices,  at  all  times,  in  London  and 
Paris,  than  in  New-York.  The  fruit-grower  abroad,  depends  upon 
extra  size,  beauty,  and  scarcity  for  his  remuneration,  and  asks,  some- 
times, a  guinea  a  dozen  for  peaches,  while  the  orchardist  of  New- 
York  will  sell  you  a  dozen  baskets  for  the  same  money.  The  result 
is,  that  while  you  may  more  easily  find  superb  fruit  in  London  and 
Paris  than  in  New- York — if  you  can  afford  to  pay  for  it — you  know 


436 


FRUIT. 


that  not  one  man  in  a  hundred  tastes  peaches  in  a  season,  on  the 
other  side  of  the  water,  while  during  the  month  of  September,  they 
are  the  daily  food  of  our  whole  population. 

Within  the  last  five  years,  the  planting  of  orchards  has,  in  the 
United  States,  been  carried  to  an  extent  never  known  before.  In 
the  northern  half  of  the  Union,  apple-trees,  in  orchards,  have  been 
planted  by  thousands  and  hundreds  of  thousands,  in  almost  every 
State.  The  rapid  communication  established  by  means  of  railroads 
and  steamboats  in  all  parts  of  the  country,  has  operated  most  favor- 
ably on  all  the  lighter  branches  of  agriculture,  and  so  many  farmers 
have  found  their  orchards  the  most  profitable,  because  least  expen- 
sive part  of  their  farms,  that  orcharding  has  become  in  some  parts 
of  the  West,  almost  an  absolute  distinct  species  of  husbandry.  Dried 
apples  are  a  large  article  of  export  from  one  part  of  the  country  to 
another,  and  the  shipment  of  American  apples  of  the  finest  quality 
to  England,  is  now  a  regular  and  profitable  branch  of  commerce. 
No  apple  that  is  sent  from  any  part  of  the  Continent  will  command 
more  than  half  the  price  in  Covent  Garden  market,  that  is  readily 
paid  for  the  Newtown  pippin. 

The  pear  succeeds  admirably  in  many  parts  of  the  United  States 
— but  it  also  fails  as  a  market  fruit  in  many  others — and,  though 
large  orchards  have  been  planted  in  various  parts  of  the  country, 
we  do  not  think  the  result,  as  yet,  warrants  the  belief  that  the 
orchard  culture  of  pears  will  be  profitable  generally.  In  certain 
deep  soils — abounding  with  lime,  potash,  and  phosphates,  naturally, 
as  in  central  New-York,  the  finest  pears  grow  and  bear  like  apples, 
and  produce  veiy  large  profits  to  their  cultivators.  Mr.  Pardee's 
communication  on  this  subject,  in  a  former  number,  shows  how 
largely  the  pear  is  grown  as  an  orchard  fruit  in  the  State  of  New- 
York,  and  how  profitable  a  branch  of  culture  it  has  already 
become. 

In  the  main,  however,  we  believe  the  experience  of  the  last  five 
years  has  led  most  cultivators — particularly  those  not  in  a  region 
naturally  favorable  in  its  soil — to  look  upon  a  pear  as  a  tree  rather 
to  be  confined  to  the  fruit-garden  than  the  orchard ;  as  a  tree  not  so 
hardy  as  the  apple,  but  sufficiently  hardy  to  give  its  finest  fruit,  pro- 
vided the  soil  is  deep,  and  the  aspect  one  not  too  much  exposed  to 


A  FEW  WORDS  ON  FRUIT  CULTURE. 


437 


violent  changes  of  temperature.  As  the  pear-tree  (in  its  finer  varie- 
ties) is  more  delicate  in  its  bark  than  any  other  fruit-tree  excepting 
the  apricot,  the  best  cultivators  now  agree  as  to  the  utility  of  sheath- 
ing the  stem  from  the  action  of  the  sun  all  the  year  round — either 
by  keeping  the  branches  low  and  thick,  so  as  to  shade  the  trunk  and 
principal  limbs — the  best  mode — or  by  sheathing  the  stems  with 
straw — thus  preserving  a  uniform  temperature.  In  all  soils  and  cli- 
mates naturally  unfavorable  to  the  pear,  the  culture  of  this  tree  is 
far  easier  upon  the  quince  stock  than  upon  the  pear  stock ;  and  this, 
added  to  compactness  and  economy  of  space  for  small  gardens,  has 
trebled  the  demand  for  dwarf  pears  within  the  last  half-dozen  years. 
The  finest  pears  that  make  their  appearance  in  our  markets,  are  still 
the  White  Doyenne  (or  Virgalieu),  and  the  Bartlett.  In  Philadel- 
phia the  Seckel  is  abundant,  but  of  late  years  the  fruit  is  small  and 
inferior,  for  want  of  the  high  culture  and  manuring  which  this  pear 
demands. 

If  we  except  the  neighborhood  of  Rochester  and  a  part  of  cen- 
tral New- York  (probably  the  future  Belgium  of  America,  as  se- 
gards  the  production  of  pears),  the  best  fruit  of  this  kind  yet  pro- 
duced in  the  United  States  is  still  to  be  found  in  the  neighborhood 
of  Boston.  Neither  climate  nor  soil  are  naturally  favorable  there, 
but  the  great  pomological  knowledge  and  skill  of  the  amateur  and 
professional  cultivators  of  Massachusetts,  have  enabled  them  to  make 
finer  shows  of  pears,  both  as  regards  quality  and  variety,  than  have 
been  seen  in  any  part  of  the  world.  And  this  leads  us  to  observe 
that  the  very  facility  with  which  fruit  is  cultivated  in  America — 
consisting  for  the  most  part  only  in  planting  the  trees,  and  gathering 
the  crop — leads  us  into  an  error  as  to  the  standard  of  size  and  flavor 
attainable  generally.  One  half  the  number  of  trees  well  cultivated, 
manured,  pruned,  and  properly  cared  for,  annually,  would  give  a 
larger  product  of  really  delicious  and  handsome  fruit,  than  is  now 
obtained  from  double  the  number  of  trees,  and  thrice  the  area  of 
ground.  The  difficulty  usually  lies  in  the  want  of  knowledge,  and 
the  high  price  of  labor.  But  the  horticultural  societies  in  all  parts 
of  the  country,  are  gradually  raising  the  criterion  of  excellence 
among  amateurs,  and  the  double  and  treble  prices  paid  lately  by 
confectioners  for  finely-grown  specimens,  over  the  market  value  of 


438  FRUIT. 

ordinary  fruit,  are  opening  the  eyes  of  market  growers  to  the  pecu- 
niary advantages  of  high  cultivation. 

Perhaps  the  greatest  advance  in  fruit-growing  of  the  last  half- 
dozen  years,  is  in  the  culture  of  foreign  grapes.  So  long  as  it  was 
believed  that  our  climate,  which  is  warm  enough  to  give  us  the 
finest  melons  in  abundance,  is  also  sufficient  to  produce  the  foreign 
grape  in  perfection,  endless  experiments  were  tried  in  the  open  gar- 
den. But  as  all  these  experiments  were  unsatisfactory  or  fruitless, 
not  only  at  the  North  but  at  the  South — it  has  finally  come  to  be 
admitted  that  the  difficulty  lies  in  the  variableness,  rather  than  the 
want  of  heat,  in  the  United  States.  This  once  conceded,  our  horti- 
culturists have  turned  their  attention  to  vineries  for  raising  this  de- 
licious fruit  under  glass — and  at  the  present  time,  so  much  have 
both  private  and  market  vineries  increased,  the  finest  Hamburgh, 
Chasselas,  and  Muscat  grapes,  may  be  had  in  abundance  at  mode- 
rate prices,  in  the  markets  of  Boston,  New-York,  and  Philadelphia. 
For  a  September  crop  of  the  finest  foreign  grapes,  the  heat  of  the 
sun  accumulated  in  one  of  the  so-called  cold  vineries  (i.  e.  a  vinery 
without  artificial  heat,  and  the  regular  temperature  insured  by  the 
vinery  itself)  is  amply  sufficient.  A  cold  vinery  is  constructed  at 
so  moderate  a  cost,  that  it  is  now  fast  becoming  the  appendage  of 
every  good  garden,  and  some  of  our  wealthiest  amateurs,  taking  ad- 
vantage of  our  bright  and  sunny  climate,  have  grapes  on  their  tables 
from  April  to  Christmas — the  earlier  crops  forced — the  late  ones 
slightly  retarded  in  cold  vineries.  From  all  that  we  saw  of  the  best 
private  gardens  in  England,  last  summer,  we  are  confident  that  we 
raise  foreign  grapes  under  glass  in  the  United  States,  of  higher  flavor, 
and  at  far  less  trouble,  than  they  are  usually  produced  in  England. 
Indeed,  we  have  seen  excellent  Black  Hamburghs  grown  in  a  large 
pit  made  by  covering  the  vines  trained  on  a  high  board  fence,  with 
the  common  sash  of  a  large  hot-bed. 

On  the  Ohio,  the  native  grapes — especially  the  Catawba — have 
risen  to  a  kind  of  national  importance.  The  numerous  vineries 
which  border  that  river,  particularly  about  Cincinnati,  have  begun 
to  yield  abundant  vintages  of  pure  light  wine,  which  takes  rank  with 
foreign  wine  of  established  reputation,  and  commands  a  high  price 
in  the  market.    Now  *hat  the  Ohio  is  certain  to  give  us  Hock  and 


A  FEW  WORDS  ON  FRUIT  CULTURE. 


439 


Claret,  what  we  hear  of  the  grapes  and  wine  of  Texas  and  New 
Mexico,  leads  us  to  believe  that  the  future  vineyards  of  New  World 
Sherry  and  Madeira  may  spring  up  in  that  quarter  of  our  widely 
extended  country. 

New  Jersey,  so  long  famous  for  her  prolific  peach  orchards,  be- 
gins to  show  the  effects  of  a  careless  system  of  culture.  Every  year, 
the  natural  elements  of  the  soil  needful  to  the  production  of  the  finest 
peaches,  are  becoming  scarcer  and  scarcer,  and  nothing  but  deeper 
cultivation,  and  a  closer  attention  to  the  inorganic  necessities  of 
vegetable  growth,  will  enable  the  orchardists  of  that  State  long  to 
hold  their  ground  in  the  production  of  good  fruit.  At  the  present 
moment,  the  peaches  of  Cincinnati  and  Rochester  are  far  superior, 
both  in  beauty  and  flavor,  to  those  of  the  New- York  market — though 
in  quantity  the  latter  beats  the  world.  The  consequence  is,  that  we 
shall  soon  find  the  peaches  of  Lake  Ontario  outselling  those  of  Long 
Island  and  New  Jersey  in  the  same  market,  unless  the  orchardists 
of  the  latter  State  abandon  Malagatunes  and  the  yellows,  and  shal- 
low ploughing.  • 

The  fruit  that  most  completely  baffles  general  cultivation  in  the 
United  States,  is  the  plum.  It  is  a  tree  that  grows  and  blossoms 
well  enough  in  all  parts  of  the  country,  but  almost  every  where  it 
has  for  its  companion  the  curculio,  the  most  destructive  and  the 
least  vulnerable  of  all  enemies  to  fruit.  In  certain  parts  of  the  Hud- 
son, of  central  New- York,  and  at  the  West,  where  the  soil  is  a  stiff, 
fat  clay,  the  curculio  finds  such  poor  quarters  in  the  soil,  and  the 
tree  thrives  so  well,  that  the  fruit  is  most  delicious.  But  in  light, 
sandy  soils,  its  culture  is  only  an  aggravation  to  the  gardener.  In 
such  sites,  here  and  there  only  a  tree  escapes,  which  stands  in  some 
pavement  or  some  walk  for  ever  hard  by  the  pressure  of  constant 
passing.  No  method  has  proved  effectual  but  placing  the  trees  in 
the  midst  of  the  pig  and  poultry  yard ;  and  notwithstanding  the 
numerous  remedies  that  have  been  proposed  in  our  pages  since  the 
commencement  of  this  work,  this  proves  the  only  one  that  has  not 
failed  more  frequently  than  it  has  succeeded. 

The  multiplication  of  insects  seems  more  rapid,  if  possible,  than 
that  of  gardens  and  orchards  in  this  country.  Every  where  the  cul- 
ture of  fruit  appears,  at  first  sight,  the  easiest  possible  matter,  and 


440 


FRUIT. 


really  would  be,  were  it  not  for  some  insect  pest  that  stands  ready 
to  devour  and  destroy.  In  countries  where  the  labor  of  women  and 
children  is  applied,  at  the  rate  of  a  few  cents  a  day,  to  the  extermi- 
nation of  insects,  it  is  comparatively  easy  to  keep  the  latter  under 
control.  But  nobody  can  afford  to  catch  the  curculios  and  other 
beetles  at  the  price  of  a  dollar  a  day  for  labor.  The  entomologists 
ought,  therefore,  to  explain  to  us  some  natural  laws  which  have  been 
violated  to  bring  upon  us  such  an  insect  scourge ;  or  at  least  point 
out  to  us  some  cheap  way  of  calling  in  nature  to  our  aid,  in  getting 
rid  of  the  vagrants.  For  our  own  part,  we  fully  believe  that  it  is  to 
the  gradual  decrease  of  small  birds — partly  from  the  destruction  of 
our  forests,  but  mainly  from  the  absence  of  laws  against  that  vaga- 
bond race  of  unfledged  sportsmen  who  shoot  sparrows  when  they 
ought  to  be  planting  corn — that  this  inordinate  increase  of  insects  is 
to  be  attributed.  Nature  intended  the  small  birds  to  be  maintained 
by  the  destruction  of  insects,  and  if  the  former  are  wantonly  de- 
stroyed, our  crops,  both  of  the  field  and  gardens,  must  pay  the 
penalty.  If  the  boys  must  indulge  their  spirit  of  liberty  by  shooting 
something  innocent,  it  would  be  better  for  us  husbandmen  and  gar- 
deners to  subscribe  and  get  some  French  masters  of  the  arts  of  do- 
mestic sports,  to  teach  them  how  to  bring  their  light  artillery  to 
bear  upon  bull-frogs.  It  would  be  a  gain  to  the  whole  agricultural 
community,  of  more  national  importance  than  the  preservation  of 
the  larger  birds  by  the  game  laws. 

We  may  be  expected  to  say  a  word  or  two  here  respecting  the 
result  of  the  last  five  years  on  pomology  in  the  United  States.  The 
facts  are  so  well  known  that  it  seems  hardly  necessary.  There  has 
never  been  a  period  on  either  side  of  the  Atlantic,  when  so  much 
attention  has  been  paid  to  fruit  and  "fruit  culture.  The  rapid  in- 
crease of  nurseries,  the  enormous  sales  of  fruit-trees,  the  publication 
and  dissemination  of  work  after  work  upon  fruits  and  fruit  culture, 
abundantly  prove  this  assertion.  The  Pomological  Congress  which 
held  its  third  session  last  year  in  Cincinnati,  and  which  meets  again 
this  autumn  in  Philadelphia,  has  done  much,  and  will  do  more  to- 
wards generalizing  our  pomological  knowledge  for  the  country  gen- 
erally. During  the  last  ten  years,  almost  every  fine  fruit  known  in 
Europe  has  been  introduced,  and  most  of  them  have  been  proved  in 


A  FEW  WORDS  ON  FRUIT  CULTURE.  441 

this  country.  The  result,  on  the  whole,  has  been  below  the  expec- 
tation ;  a  few  very  fine  sorts  admirably  adapted  to  the  country ;  a 
great  number  of  indifferent  quality  ;  many  absolutely  worthless. 
This,  naturally,  makes  pomologists  and  fruit-growers  less  anxious 
about  the  novelties  of  the  nurseries  abroad,  and  more  desirous  of 
originating  first-rate  varieties  at  home.  The  best  lessons  learned 
from  the  discussions  in  the  Pomological  Congress — where  the  expe- 
rience of  the  most  practical  fruit-growers  of  the  country  is  brought 
out — is,  that  for  every  State,  or  every  distinct  district  of  country, 
there  must  be  found  or  produced  its  improved  indigenous  varieties 
of  fruit — varieties  born  on  the  soil,  inured  to  the  climate,  and  there- 
fore best  adapted  to  that  given  locality.  So  that  after  gathering  a 
few  kernels  of  wheat  out  of  bushels  of  chaff,  American  horticultu- 
rists feel,  at  the  present  moment,  as  if  the  best  promise  of  future  ex- 
cellence, either  in  fruits  or  practical  skill,  lay  in  applying  all  our 
knowledge  and  power  to  the  study  of  our  own  soil  and  climate,  and 
in  helping  nature  to  perform  the  problem  of  successful  cultivation, 
by  hints  drawn  from  the  facts  immediately  around  us. 


u. 


THE  FEUITS  IN  CONVENTION. 

February,  1850. 

WHAT  an  extraordinary  age  is  this  for  conventions !  Now-a- 
days,  if  people  only  imagine  something  is  the  matter,  they 
directly  hold  a  convention,  and  resolve  that  the  world  shall  he 
amended.  We  should  not  he  surprised  to  hear  next,  of  a  conven- 
tion of  crows,  resolving  that  the  wicked  practice  of  setting  scare- 
crows in  cornfields  he  henceforth  abolished. 

Sitting  in  our  easy  chair  a  few  evenings  since,  we  were  quite  sur- 
prised to  see  the  door  of  our  library  open,  and  a  small  boy — dressed 
in  dark  green,  who  had  something  of  the  air  of  a  locust  or  a  grass- 
hopper— walk  in  with  a  note. 

It  was  an  invitation  to  attend  a  mass  meeting  of  all  the  fruits  of 
America,  ass  embled  to  discuss  the  propriety  of  changing  their  names. 
Horrified  at  the  revolutionary  spirit,  we  seized  our  hat  directly,  and 
bade  the  messenger  lead  the  way. 

He  lost  no  time  in  conducting  us  at  once  to  a  large  building, 
where  we  entered  a  lofty  hall,  whose  dome,  ribbed  like  a  melon,  was 
lighted  by  a  gigantic  chandelier,  in  the  form  of  a  Christmas  tree, 
the  lights  of  which  gleamed  through  golden  and  emerald  drops  of 
all  manner  of  crystal  fruits. 

In  the  hall  itself  were  assembled  all  our  familiar  acquaintances, 
and  many  that  were  scarcely  known  to  us  by  sight.  We  mean  our 
acquaintances — the  fruits.  On  the  right  of  the  speaker  sat  the 
Pears  ;  rather  a  tall,  aristocratic  set  of  gentlemen  and  ladies, — many 
of  them  foreigners,  and  most  of  them  of  French  origin.    One  could 


THE  FRUITS  IN  CONVENTION.  443 

see  by  the  gossiping  and  low  conversation  going  on  in  knots 
among  them,  that  they  were  full  of  little  schemes  of  finesse.  On 
the  left,  sat  the  numerous  Apple  family,  with  honest,  ruddy  faces  ; 
and  whether  Yankee,  English,  or  German,  evidently  all  of  the  Teu- 
tonic race.  They  had  a  resolute,  determined  air,  as  if  they  had  busi- 
ness of  importance  on  hand.  Directly  behind  the  Pears  sat  the 
Peaches,  mostly  ladies,  with  such  soft  complexions  and  finely  turned 
figures  as  it  did  one's  eyes  good  to  contemplate ;  or  youths,  with  the 
soft  down  of  early  manhood  on  their  chins.  Apricots  and  Necta- 
rines were  mingled  among  them,  full  of  sweet  smiles  and  a  honeyed 
expression  about  their  mouths.  The  Plums  were  there,  too,  dressed 
in  purple  and  gold, — many  of  them  in  velvet  coats,  with  a  fine  downy 
bloom  upon  them ;  and  near  them  were  the  Cherries,  an  arrant,  co- 
quettish set  of  lasses  and  lads, — the  light  in  their  eyes  as  bright  as 
rubies.  The  Strawberries  sat  on  low  stools  in  the  aisles,  overhung 
and  backed  by  the  Grapes, — tall  fellows,  twisting  their  moustaches 
(tendrils),  and  leaning  about  idly,  as  if  they  took  but  little  interest 
in  the  proceedings.  The  only  sour  faces  in  the  crowd  were  those  of 
a  knot  of  Morello  Cherries  and  Dutch  Currants,  who  took  every 
occasion  to  hiss  any  speaker  not  in  favor. 

We  said  this  was  a  convention  of  fruits ;  but  we  ought  also  to 
add  that  the  fruits  looked  extremely  like  human  beings.  On  re- 
marking this  to  our  guide,  he  quietly  said, — "  Of  course,  you  know 
you  see  them  now  in  their  spiritual  forms.  If  you  half  close  your  eyes, 
you  will  find  you  recognize  them  all  in  their  everyday,  familiar 
shapes."  And  so  indeed  we  did,  and  were  shaking  hands  warmly 
with  our  neighbors  and  friends — the  Beurres,  and  Pippins,  and  Pear- 
mains,  when  we  were  interrupted  by  the  speaker,  calling  the  meet- 
ing to  order. 

The  Speaker  (on  giving  him  the  blink),  we  found  to  be  a  fine 
large  specimen  of  the  Boston  Russet,  with  a  dignified  expression,  and 
a  certain  bland  air  of  one  accustomed  to  preside.  He  returned 
thanks  very  handsomely  to  the  convention  for  the  honor  of  the 
chair ;  assuring  them  that  having  been  bred  in  the  land  of  steady 
habits,  he  would  do  all  in  his  power  to  maintain  order  and  expedite 
the  business  of  the  convention.  We  noticed,  as  he  sat  down,  that 
there  were  vice-presidents  from  every  State, — many  of  them  old  and 


444  FRUIT. 

well-known  fruits  ;  and  that  the  Le  Clerc  Pear  and  an  Honest  John 
Peach  were  the  secretaries ;  and  a  pair  of  very  astringent  looking 
fellows — one  a  Crab  Apple,  and  the  other  a  Choke  Pear — were  ser- 
geants-at-arms,  or  door-keepers.  Their  duties  seemed  to  be  chiefly 
that  of  preventing  some  brambles  fi'om  clambering  up  the  walls  and 
looking  in  the  windows,  and  a  knot  of  saucy  looking  blackamoors, 
whom  we  discovered  to  be  only  Black  Currants,  from  crowding  up 
the  lobbies  ;  the  latter  in  particular,  being  in  bad  odor  with  many 
of  the  members. 

There  was  a  little  stir  on  the  left,  and  a  solid,  substantial,  well- 
to-do  personage  rose,  who  we  recognized  immediately  as  the  New- 
town Pippin.  He  had  the  air  of  a  man  about  sixty ;  but  there  was 
a  look  of  sound  health  about  him  which  made  you  feel  sure  of  his 
hundredth  year. 

The  Newtown  Pippin  said  it  was  needless  for  him  to  remark  that 
this  was  no  common  meeting.  The  members  were  all  aware  that 
no  ordinary  motives  had  called  together  this  great  convention  of 
fruits.  He  was  proud  and  happy  to  welcome  so  many  natives  and 
naturalized  citizens, — all  bearing  evidence  of  having  taken  kindly 
to  the  soil  of  this  great  and  happy  country.  Every  one  present 
knows,  the  world  begins  to  know,  he  remarked,  that  North  America 
is  the  greatest  of  fruit-growing  countries  (hear,  hear),  that  the  United 
States  was  fast  becoming  the  favored  land  of  Pomona,  who,  indeed, 
was  always  rather  republican  in  her  taste,  and  hated,  above  all 
things,  the  fashion  in  aristocratic  countries  of  tying  her  up  to  walls, 
and  confining  her  under  glass.  He  preferred  the  open  air,  and  the 
free  breath  of  orchards. 

But,  he  said,  it  was  necessary  to  come  to  business.  This  conven- 
tion had  met  to  discuss  the  propriety  and  necessity  of  passing  an 
alien  law,  by  which  all  foreigners,  on  settling  in  this  country,  should 
be  obliged  to  drop  their  foreign  names,  or,  rather,  have  them  trans- 
lated into  plain  English.  The  cultivators  of  fruit  were,  take  them  alto- 
gether, a  body  of  plain,  honest  countrymen,  who,  however  they  might 
relish  foreign  fruits,  did  not  get  on  well  with  foreign  names.  They 
found  them  to  stick  in  their  throats  to  such  a  degree  that  they  could 
not  make  good  bargains  over  such  gibberish.  The  question  to  be 
brought  before  this  meeting,  therefore,  was  nothing  more  nor  less  than 


THE  FRUITS  IN  CONVENTION.  445 

whether  things  should  be  called  by  names  that  sounded  real,  or 
names  that  had  a  foreign,  fictitious  and  romantic  air ;  whether  an 
honest  man  might  be  called  in  plain  English  a  "  good  Christian,"  or 
whether  he  should  forever  be  doomed  to  be  misrepresented  and 
misunderstood  as  a  "  Bon  Chretien?  For  his  own  part,  he  said,  he 
thought  it  was  time  to  assert  our  nationality  ;  and  while  he  was  the 
last  man  to  say  or  do  any  thing  to  prevent  foreigners  from  settling 
among  us,  he  did  think  that  they  should  have  the  courtesy  to  drop 
foreign  airs  and  come  down  to  plain  English,  or  plain  Yankee  com- 
prehension. He  was  himself  a  "  native  American,"  and  he  gloried 
in  it.  He  considered  himself,  though  a  plain  republican,  as  good  as 
any  foreigners,  however  high-sounding  their  titles  ;  and  he  believed 
that  if  fruits  would  be  more  careful  about  their  intrinsic  flavor,  and 
study,  as  he  did,  how  to  maintain  their  credit  perfect  and  unimpaired 
for  the  longest  possible  period,  it  would  in  the  end  be  found  more  to 
their  advantage  than  this  stickling  for  foreign  titles.  His  ancestors, 
he  said,  were  born  in  the  State  of  New- York ;  and  he  was  himself 
raised  in  a  great  and  well-known  orchard  on  the  Hudson.  (Hear, 
hear.)  If  any  gentleman  present  wished  to  know  the  value  of  a 
plain  American  name,  he  would  be  glad  to  show  him,  in  dollars  and 
cents,  the  income  of  that  orchard.  He  was  in  greater  favor  in 
Covent  Garden  market  than  any  English  or  continental  fruit ;  and 
such  sums  had  been  realized  from  the  sales  of  that  orchard,  that  it 
was  seriously  proposed  in  the  English  parliament  to  impose  a  duty 
on  Newtown  Pippins,  to  pay  off  the  national  debt.  (Great  applause, 
and  a  hiss  from  a  string  of  Currants.)  He  concluded,  by  trust- 
ing the  chairman  would  pardon  this  allusion  to  his  own  affairs,  which 
he  only  gave  to  show  that  a  Pippin,  in  plain  English,  was  worth 
as  much  in  the  market  and  the  world's  estimation,  as  the  finest 
French  title  that  was  ever  lisped  in  the  Faubourg  St.  Germain. 
He  moved  that  all  foreign  names  of  fruits  be  done  into  plain  Eng- 
lish. 

This  speech  produced  a  great  commotion  among  the  Pears  on 
the  right,  who  had  evidently  not  expected  such  a  straightforward 
way  of  treating  the  matter.  For  a  moment  all  was  confusion.  That 
little  fellow,  the  Petit  Muscat, — always  the  first  on  the  carpet, — 
ran  hither  and  thither  gathering  little  clusters  about  him.  The 


446  FRUIT. 

Sans-peau,  or  Skinless,  was  evidently  touched  to  the  quick.  The 
Pomme  glace  gave  all  the  Pippins  a  freezing  look ;  and  the  Fon- 
dante  d?Automne,  a  very  tender  creature,  was  so  overcome  that  she 
melted  into  tears  at  such  a  monstrous  proposition.  The  Belle  de 
Bruxelles  muttered  that  she  had  seen  Newtown  Pippins  that  were 
false-hearted ;  and  the  Poire  Episcopal  declared  that  the  man  who 
could  utter  such  sentiments  was  a  radical,  and  dangerous  to  the 
peace  of  established  institutions. 

Just  as  we  were  wondering  who  would  rise  on  the  opposition,  a 
tall,  well  proportioned  Pear  got  up,  with  a  pleasant  Flemish  aspect. 
It  was  Van  Moris'  Leon  le  Clerc.  He  said  he  was  sorry  to  see  this 
violent  feeling  manifested  against  foreign  names;  and  being  a 
foreigner,  and  having  had  a  pretty  long  acquaintance  with  foreign 
Pears  abroad,  he  felt  called  upon  to  say  something  in  their  defence. 
He  thought  the  remarks  of  the  gentleman  who  had  preceded  him, 
both  uncourteous  to  foreigners  and  unreasonable.  He  could  not  un- 
derstand why  people  should  not  be  allowed  to  retain  their  names, 
at  least  such  as  had  any  worth  retaining,  even  if  they  did  become 
rooted  to  the  soil  of  this  country.  Especially  when  those  names 
were  in  the  most  polite  language  in  the  world, — a  language  which 
every  educated  person  was  bound  to  understand, — a  language  spoken 
by  Duhamel  and  Van  Mons,  the  greatest  of  pomologists, — a  lan- 
guage more  universal  than  the  English, — spoken,  in  short,  in  all 
civilized  countries,  and  especially  spoken  by  fine  ladies  over  a  dish 
of  fine  pears  at  the  dessert.    (Great  applause.) 

Here,  a  stranger  to  us,  the  Bezi  des  Veterans,  rose  and  said  : — 
Sare,  I  have  de  honor  to  just  arrive  in  dis  country.  I  am  very  much 
chagrinee  at  dis  proposition  to  take  away  my  name.  I  have  run 
away  from  de  revolutions,  what  take  away  my  property,  and  here 
I  hope  to  find  la  liberie — la  paix  ;  and  I  only  find  les  voleurs— 
robbers — vat  vish  to  take  away  my  name.  Yes,  sare ;  and  what 
they  will  call  me  den  ? — "  wild  old  mans,"  or  "  old  sojair  ? "  Bah  ! 
Me  no  like  to  be  so,  Moi,  who  belong  to  de  grand  bataillon — le 
garde  Napoleon  ! 

Here  a  pleasant  and  amiable  lady  rose,  evidently  a  little  embar- 
rassed. It  was  Louise  Bonne  de  Jersey.  She  said  she  loved  Ame- 
rica.   True,  she  had  found  the  chmate  not  to  agree  with  her  at  first, 


THE  FRUITS  IN  CONVENTION. 


447 


and  her  children  seemed  to  pine  away;  but  since  she  had  taken 
that  hardy  creature,  the  Quince,  for  a  partner,  they  had  done  won- 
derfully well.  For  her  own  part,  she  had  no  objection  whatever  to 
being  called  "  Good  Louise,"  or  even  "  Dear  Louisa,"  if  her  Ame- 
rican friends  and  cousins  liked  it  better.  All  she  asked  was  to  be 
allowed  to  live  in  the  closest  intimacy  with  the  Quince,  and  not 
to  have  any  cutting  remarks  made  at  her  roots.  She  could  not 
bear  that. 

A  very  superb  and  stately  lady  next  rose,  giving  a  shake  to  her 
broad  skirts  of  yellow  satin,  and  looking  about  her  with  the  air  of 
a  duchess.  In  fact,  it  was  the  Duchesse  d'Angouleme  ;  and  though 
she  was  a  little  high  shouldered,  and  her  features  somewhat  irregular, 
she  had  still  a  very  noble  air.  She  remarked,  in  a  simple  and  dig- 
nified voice,  that  she  had  been  many  years  in  this  country,  and  had 
become  very  partial  to  the  people  and  institutions.  Naturally,  she 
had  strong  attachments  to  old  names  and  associations,  especially 
where,  as  in  her  case,  they  were  names  that  were  names.  But,  she 
added,  it  was  impossible  to  live  in  America  without  mixing  with 
the  people,  if  one's  very  name  could  not  be  understood.  It  was 
very  distressing  to  her  feelings  to  find,  as  she  did,  that  French  was 
not  taught  in  the  common  schools ;  and  she  hoped  if  an  agricul- 
tural college  was  established,  the  scholars  would  be  taught  that  lan- 
guage which  was  synonymous  with  every  thing  elegant  and  refined. 
She  trusted,  in  conclusion,  that  though  names  should  be  anglicized, 
the  dignity  would  be  preserved.  A  duchess,  in  name  at  least,  she 
must  always  be ;  but  if  republicans  preferred  to  call  her  simply  the 
Duchess  of  Angouleme,  she  saw  nothing  amiss  in  it.  Especially, — 
she  remarked,  with  a  slight  toss  of  the  head, — especially,  since  she 
had  heard  an  ignorant  man,  at  the  country-seat  where  she  resided 
call  her  repeatedly  "  Duchy-Dan  goes-lame ;"  and  another,  who 
visits  him,  speak  of  her,  as  "  Dutch  Dangle-um,"  forgetting  that  she 
abhorred  Holland. 

She  was  followed  by  the  Bed  Streak  Apple,  from  New  Jersey, 
a  very  blunt,  sturdy  fellow,  who  spoke  his  mind  plainly.  He  said 
he  liked  the  good  sense  of  the  lady  who  had  just  spoken  ;  she  was 
a  woman  he  should  have  no  objection  to  call  a  Duchess  himself. 
About  this  matter  he  had  but  few  words  to  say.    Some  folks  were 


448 


FRUIT. 


all  talk  and  no  cider  ;  that,  thank  God !  was  not  his  fashion.  What 
he  had  to  say  he  said  ;  and  that  was,  that  he  was  sick  of  this  tom- 
foolery about  foreign  names.  A  name  either  meant  something  or  it 
did  not.  Any  body  who  looked  at  him  could  see  that  he  was  a 
Red-Streak,  and  that  was  all  that  his  father  expected  when  he  named 
him.  Any  body  could  believe  that  the  last  speaker  was  a  Duchess. 
But  what,  he  should  like  to  know,  did  the  man  mean  who  named  a 
Peach  "  Sanguinole  a  chair  adherent  /"  He  should  like  to  meet 
that  chap.  It  would  be  a  regular  raw-head  and  bloody-bones  piece 
of  business  for  him.  And  "  Fondante  du  Bois  ;"  he  supposed  that 
was  the  fond  aunt  of  some  b'hoys, — it  might  be  the  "  old  boy,"  for 
all  he  knew.  And  "  Beurre  Gris  d'Hiver  nouveau."  Could  any 
thing  be  more  ridiculous !  He  should  like  to  know  how  those 
clever  people,  the  pomologists,  would  translate  that?  They  told 
him,  "  new  gray  winter  butter,"  (laughter  ;)  and  what  sort  of  winter 
butter,  pray,  was  that  ?  "  Beine  de  Pays  has  ;"  what  this  meant, 
he  did  not  exactly  know, — something,  he  supposed,  about  "  rainy 
weather  pays  bad,"  which  would  not  go  down,  he  could  tell  the 
gentleman,  in  our  dry  climate.  There  was  no  end  to  this  stuff,  he 
said.  He  seconded  the  Pippin.  Clear  it  all  away ;  boil  it  down  to 
a  little  pure,  plain  English  essence,  if  there  was  any  substance  in  it ; 
if  not,  throw  the  lingo  to  the  dogs.  He  hoped  the  Pears  would  ex- 
cuse him.  He  meant  no  offence  to  them  personally.  But  he  didn't 
like  their  names,  and  he  told  them  so  to  their  faces. 

The  Minister  Apple  here  observed  that  he  had  some  moral  scru- 
ples about  changing  the  names  of  all  the  fruits.  It  might  have 
a  bad  effect  on  the  hearts  and  minds  of  the  community.  He 
begged  leave  to  present  to  the  speaker's  consideration  such  names, 
for  example,  as  the  "  Ah  mon  Dieu"  and  the  "  Cuisse  Madame  " 
Pears !  There  were  many  who  grew  those  Pears,  and,  like  our  first 
parents,  did  not  know  the  real  nature  of  the  fruits  in  the  garden. 
Happy  ignorance !  Translate  them,  and  they  would,  he  feared,  be- 
come fruits  of  the  tree  of  knowledge. 

A  tall  Mazzard  Cheriy  hereupon  remarked  (wiping  his  specta- 
cles), that  a  very  easy  way  of  avoiding  the  danger  which  his  worthy 
friend,  who  had  just  sat  down,  had  pointed  out,  would  be  to  reject 
both  the  Pears  and  the  names,  when  they  were  no  better  than  the 


THE  FRUITS  IN  CONVENTION. 


449 


last.  He  was  a  warm  friend  to  progress  in  horticulture,  and  he  was 
fully  of  the  opinion  of  the  Jersey  Red-Streak,  that  things  should 
not  come  among  us,  plain  republicans,  in  disguise.  How,  indeed, 
did  we  know  that  these  Pears  of  France  were  not  sent  out  here 
under  these  queer  names  for  the  very  purpose  of  corrupting  our 
morals ;  or,  at  least,  imposing  on  us  in  some  way  ?  He  had  been 
settled  in  a  garden  for  some  years,  among  a  pleasant  society  of  trees, 
when  last  spring  the  owner  introduced  a  new  Pear  from  abroad, 
under  the  fine  name  of  "  Ghat  brule."  For  some  time  the  thing 
put  on  airs,  and  talked  about  its  estate  and  chateau  having  been 
destroyed  by  incendiaries ;  and  it  showed  a  petition  for  charity. 
What  was  his  amazement,  one  day,  when  the  daughter  of  the  pro- 
prietor came  in  the  garden,  to  see  the  contempt  with  which  she 
turned  away  from  this  Pear,  and  exclaimed,  "  what  could  have  in- 
duced pa  to  have  brought  this 'singed  cat' here?"  Chat  brule, 
indeed!  He  bent  over  the  creature  and  switched  her  finely  the 
first  stormy  day.  He  was  for  translating  all  good  fruits  and  damn- 
ing all  bad  ones.  (At  hearing  this,  certain  second-rate  Strawber- 
ries commenced  running) 

The  convention  grew  very  excited  as  the  Mazzard  sat  down. 
The  Muscat  Noir  Grape  looked  black  in  the  face ;  the  Crown  Bob 
Gooseberry  threw  up  his  hat ;  and  the  Blood  Peach,  who  had  been 
flirting  with  a  very  worthless  fellow — the  French  soft-shelled  Al- 
mond— turned  quite  crimson  all  over.  Cries  of  "order,  order," 
were  heard  from  all  sides ;  and  it  was  only  restored  when  a  little, 
plump,  Dolly-Varden-looking  young  girl,  who  was  a  great  favorite 
in  good  society,  sprang  upon  a  chair  in  order  to  be  seen  and 
heard. 

This  was  the  Lady  Apple.  Her  eyes  sparkled,  and  set  off  her 
brilliant  complexion,  which  was  quite  dazzlingly  fair.  It  was  easy 
to  see  that  she  was  a  sort  of  spoiled  child  among  the  fruits. 

Mr.  Speaker,  she  said  in  a  very  sweet  voice,  you  will  indulge 
me,  I  am  sure,  with  a  very  little  speech — my  maiden  speech.  I 
should  not  have  ventured  here,  but  I  positively  thought  it  was  to 
have  been  a  private  party,  and  not  one  of  these  odious  mass  meet- 
ings. 1  am  accustomed  to  the  society  of  well-bred  people,  and 
know  something  of  the  polite  language  of  both  hemispheres.  In- 
29 


450 


FRUIT. 


deed,  my  ancestors  still  live  in  France,  though  I  am  myself  a  real 
American.  What  I  have  to  tell  is  only  a  little  of  my  own  experience  ; 
which  is,  that  one  may,  if  one  has  good  looks,  and  is  a  person  of 
taste,  have  her  name  changed  without  suffering  the  least  loss  of 
character  or  reputation.  Indeed,  I  am  convinced  it  may  often  add 
to  her  circle  of  admirers,  by  making  her  better  understood  and  ap- 
preciated. I  am  almost  ashamed,  ladies  and  gentlemen,  to  refer  to 
my  own  life,  illustrative  of  this  remark.  [Cheers).  [Here  she 
blushed,  and  looked  around  her  very  sweetly.]  At  home,  there  in 
la  belle  France,  I  belong  to  the  old  and  very  respectable  family  of 
the  Api's.  There  was  not  much  in  that ;  but  mostly  shut  up  in  an 
old  dingy  chateau,^ — no  society' — no  evening  parties — no  excite- 
ment. I  assure  you  it  was  very  dull.  In  this  country,  where  I  am 
known  every  where  as  the  "  Lady  Apple,"  I  am  invited  every  where 
among  the  most  fashionable  people.  Yes,  Mr.  Speaker,  this  coun- 
try has  charmingly  been  called  the  paradise  of  ladies ;  and  I  would 
advise  all  deserving  and  modest  girls  in  jeune  France,  to  come  over 
to  younger  America,  and  change  their  names  as  quickly  as  they  can. 
{Hear,  hear,  especially  from  the  Jonathan  Apple.)  If  they  will 
take  my  advice,  they  will  put  off  all  foolish  pride  and  fine  names 
that  mean  nothing,  and  try  to  speak  plain  English,  and  dress 
in  the  latest  republican  style ;  (especially, — she  added,  aside,  turn- 
ing to  the  foreign  Pears, — especially  as  the  fashions  always  come 
from  Paris.) 

This  lively  little  sally  evidently  made  a  favorable  impression. 
The  Bartlett  Pear  said  he  was  nobody  in  France  as  the  Poire  Gkul- 
lame,  while  here,  where  the  climate  agreed  so  much  better  with  his 
constitution,  he  was  a  favorite  with  high  and  low.  The  Duchesse 
d' Orleans  thought  it  best  for  ladies  like  herself,  who  did  not  expect 
to  associate  with  any  but  the  educated  class,  to  retain  their  foreign 
names.  The  Jargonell  Pear  said  he  had  heard  a  great  deal  of  talk, 
which  to  him  was  a  mere  babel  of  tongues.  His  name  was  the 
same  on  both  sides  of  the  water.  The  Flemish  Beauty  said,  on  the 
other  hand,  that  she  was  a  great  deal  more  loved  in  this  country 
now,  than  when  she  first  came  here  as  the  Belle  de  Flandres.  The 
Bellefleur  Apple  observed,  she  had  tried  to  maintain  her  foreign 
etymology  in  this  country  without  success,  and  meant  to  be  hence- 


THE  FRUITS  IN  CONVENTION. 


451 


forth  plain  Bellflower :  and  the  Surprise  Apple  turned  red,  as  he 
attempted  to  say  something  (the  Morello  trying  to  hiss  him  down) ; 
but  he  was  only  able  to  stammer  out  his  astonishment  that  any  one 
could  doubt  the  policy  of  so  wise  a  movement. 

There  was  here  a  tumult  among  some  of  the  foreign  Grapes, 
accustomed  to  live  in  glass-houses,  who  had  been  caught  by  the 
Crab  Apples  stoning  the  windows,  and  sticking  their  spurs  (they 
were  short-pruned  vines)  into  some  patient-looking  old  Horse  Apples 
from  the  western  States.  A  free-soiler,  who  was  known  as  the 
Northern  Spy,  was  about  to  sow  the  seeds  of  the  apple  of  discord 
in  the  convention,  by  bringing  forward  an  amendment,  that  no 
foreign  fruits,  and  especially  none  which  were  not  "  on  their  own 
bottoms,"  should  be  allowed  to  settle  in  any  of  the  new  States  or 
territories,  when  that  old  favorite,  the  Vergal  Pear,  made  a  sooth- 
ing speech,  in  his  usual  melting  and  buttery  manner,  which  brought 
all  the  meeting  to  a  feeling  of  unanimity  again ;  when  they  re- 
solved to  postpone  further  action,  but  to  prepare  a  memorial  on  the 
subject,  to  be  laid  before  the  Congress  of  Fruit-growers,  at  its  meet- 
ing next  fall  in  Cincinnati. 


in. 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  MANURING  ORCHARDS 

January,  1848. 

THE  culture  of  the  soil  may  be  viewed  in  two  very  different  as- 
pects. In  one,  it  is  a  mean  and  ignorant  employment.  It  is  a 
moral  servitude,  which  man  is  condemned  to  pay  to  fields  perpetu- 
ally doomed  to  bear  thorns  and  thistles.  It  is  an  unmeaning  routine 
of  planting  and  sowing,  to  earn  bread  enough  to  satisfy  the  hunger 
and  cover  the  nakedness  of  the  race.  And  it  is  performed  in  this 
light,  by  the  servants  of  the  soil,  in  a  routine  as  simple,  and  with  a 
spirit  scarcely  more  intelligent  than  that  of  the  beasts  which  draw 
the  plough  that  tears  open  the  bosom  of  a  hard  and  ungenial 
earth ! 

What  is  the  other  aspect  in  which  agriculture  may  be  viewed  ?  t 
Very  different  indeed.  It  is  an  employment  at  once  the  most  natural, 
noble,  and  independent  that  can  engage  the  energies  of  man.  It 
brings  the  whole  earth  into  subjection.  It  transforms  unproductive 
tracts  into  fruitful  fields  and  gardens.  It  raises  man  out  of  the  un- 
certain and  wild  life  of  the  fisher  and  hunter,  into  that  where  all  the 
best  institutions  of  society  have  their  birth.  It  is  the  mother  of  all 
the  arts,  all  the  commerce,  and  all  the  industrial  employments  that 
maintain  the  civilization  of  the  world.  It  is  full  of  the  most  pro- 
found physical  wonders,  and  involves  an  insight  into  the  whole  his- 
tory of  the  planet,  and  the  hidden  laws  that  govern  that  most  com- 
mon and  palpable,  and  yet  most  wonderful  and  incomprehensible 
substance — matter  !  There  has  never  yet  lived  one  who  has  been 
philosopher  enough  to  penetrate  farther  than  the  outer  vestibules  of 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  MANURING  ORCHARDS. 


453 


its  great  temples  of  truth  ;  and  there  are  mysteries  enough  yet  un- 
explained in  that  every-day  miracle,  the  growth  of  an  acorn,  to  ex- 
cite for  ages  the  attention  and  admiration  of  the  most  profound 
worshipper  of  God's  works. 

Fortunately  for  us  and  for  our  age,  too  much  light  has  already 
dawned  upon  us  to  allow  intelligent  men  ever  to  relapse  into  any 
such  degrading  view  of  the  aim  and  rights  of  the  cultivator  as  that 
first  presented.  We  have  too  generally  ascertained  the  value  of 
science,  imperfect  as  it  still  is,  applied  to  farming  and  gardening,  to 
be  contented  any  more  to  go  back  to  that  condition  of  things  when 
a  crooked  tree  was  used  for  a  plough,  and  nuts  and  wild  berries 
were  sufficient  to  satisfy  the  rude  appetite  of  man.  The  natural 
sciences  have  lately  opened  new  revelations  to  us  of  the  hidden  prob- 
lems of  growth,  nutrition,  and  decay,  in  the  vegetable  and  animal 
kingdoms.  Secrets  have  been  laid  bare  that  give  us  a  new  key  to 
pOwer,  in  our  attempts  to  gain  the  mastery  over  matter,  and  we  are 
•  ontinually  on  the  alert  to  verify  and  put  in  practice  our  newly  ac- 
quired knowledge,  or  to  add  in  every  possible  way  to  the  old  stock. 
Men  are  no  longer  contented  to  reap  short  crops  from  worn-out  soil. 
They  look  for  scientific  means  of  renovating  it.  They  would  make 
rhe  earth  do  its  utmost.  Agriculture  is  thus  losing  its  old  character 
of  being  merely  physical  drudgery,  and  is  rapidly  becoming  a  sci- 
ence, full  of  profound  interest,  as  well  as  a  grand  practical  art,  which, 
Atlas-like,  bears  the  burden  of  the  world  on  its  back. 

It  is  not  to  be  denied  that  chemistry  is  the  great  railroad  which 
has  lately  been  opened,  graded,  and  partially  set  in  operation,  to 
facilitate  progress  through  that  wide  and  comparatively  unexplored 
territory — scientific  cultivation :  chemistry,  which  has  scrutinized 
and  analyzed  till  she  has  made  many  things,  formerly  doubtful  and 
hidden,  as  clear  as  noonday.  And  it  is  by  watching  her  move- 
ments closely,  by  testing  her  theories  by  practice,  by  seizing  every 
valuable  suggestion,  and  working  out  her  problems  patiently  and 
fairly,  that  the  cultivator  is  mainly  to  hope  for  progress  in  the  future. 

No  one  who  applies  his  reasoning  powers  to  the  subject  will  fail 
to  see,  also,  how  many  interesting  points  are  yet  in  obscurity  ;  how 
many  important  facts  are  only  just  beginning  to  dawn  upon  the  pa- 
tient investigator ;  how  much  is  yet  to  be  learned  only  by  repeated 


454 


FRUIT. 


experiments  ;  and  how  many  fail  who  expect  to  get  immediate  re- 
plies from  nature,  to  questions  whose  satisfactory  solution  must  de- 
pend upon  a  variety  of  preliminary  knowledge,  only  to  be  gathered 
slowly  and  patiently,  by  those  who  are  unceasing  in  their  devotion 
to  her  teachings. 

There  are  no  means  of  calculating  how  much  chemistry  has 
done  for  agriculture  within  the  last  ten  years.  We  say  this,  not  in 
the  sanguine  spirit  of  one  who  reads  a  volume  on  agricultural  chem- 
istry for  the  first  time,  and  imagines  that  by  the  application  of  a  few 
salts  he  can  directly  change  barren  fields  into  fertile  bottoms,  and 
raise  one  hundred  bushels  of  com  where  twenty  grew  before.  But 
we  say  it  after  no  little  observation  of  the  results  of  experimental 
farming — full  of  failures  and  errors,  with  only  occasional  examples 
of  brilliant  success — as  it  is. 

There  are  numbers  of  readers  who,  seeing  the  partial  operations 
of  nature  laid  bare,  imagine  that  the  whole  secret  of  assimilation  is 
discovered,  and  by  taking  too  short  a  route  to  the  end  in  view,  they 
destroy  all.  They  may  be  likened  to  those  intellectual  sluggards 
who  are  captivated  by  certain  easy  roads  to  learning,  the  gates  of 
which  are  kept  by  those  who  teach  every  branch  of  human  wisdom 
in  six  lessons  !  This  gallop  into  the  futurity  of  laborious  effort,  gen- 
erally produces  a  giddiness  that  is  almost  equivalent  to  the  oblitera- 
tion of  all  one's  power  of  discernment.  And  though  one  may,  now, 
by  the  aid  of  magnetism,  "  put  a  girdle  round  the  earth"  in  less  than 
"forty  minutes,"  there  are  still  conditions  of  nature  that  imperiously 
demand  time  and  space. 

Granting,  therefore,  that  there  are  hundreds  who  have  failed  in 
their  experiments  with  agricultural  chemistry,  still  we  contend  that 
there  are  a  few  of  the  more  skilful  and  thorough  experimenters  who 
have  been  eminently  successful ;  and  whose  success  will  gradually 
form  the  basis  of  a  new  and  improved  system  of  agriculture. 

More  than  this,  the  attention  which  has  been  drawn  to  the  value 
of  careful  and  intelligent  culture,  is  producing  indirectly  the  most 
valuable  results.  Twenty  years  ago  not  one  person  in  ten  thousand, 
cultivating  the  land,  among  us,  thought  of  any  other  means  of  en- 
riching it  than  that  of  supplying  it  with  barn-yard  manure.  At 
the  present  moment  there  is  not  an  intelligent  farmer  in  the  coun- 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  MANURING  ORCHARDS.  455 

try  who  is  not  conversant  with  the  economy  and  value  of  muck, 
ashes,  lime,  marl,  bones,  and  a  number  of  less  important  fertilizers. 
In  all  the  older  and  less  fertile  parts  of  the  country,  where  manure 
is  no  longer  cheap,  the  use  of  these  fertilizers  has  enabled  agricultu- 
rists of  limited  means  to  keep  their  land  in  high  condition,  and  add 
thirty  per  cent,  to  their  crops.  And  any  one  who  will  take  the 
trouble  to  examine  into  the  matter  in  our  principal  cities,  will  find 
that  fifty  articles,  in  the  aggregate  of  enormous  value  for  manure  to 
the  farmer  and  gardener,  which  were  until  lately  entirely  thrown 
away,  are  now  preserved,  are  articles  of  commerce,  and  are  all  turned 
to  the  utmost  account  as  food  for  the  crops. 

We  have  been  led  into  this  train  of  thought  by  observing  that 
after  the  great  staples  of  the  agriculturist — bread-stuffs  and  the 
grasses — have  had  that  first  attention  at  the  hands  of  the  chemist 
which  they  so  eminently  deserve,  some  investigation  is  now  going 
on  for  the  benefit  of  the  horticulturist  and  the  orchardist,  of  which 
it  is  our  duty  to  keep  our  readers  informed.  We  allude  to  the 
analyses  which  have  been  made  of  the  composition  of  the  inorganic 
parts  of  vegetables,  and  more  especially  of  some  of  the  fruit-trees 
whose  culture  is  becoming  an  object  of  so  much  importance  to  this 
country. 

We  think  no  one  at  all  familiar  with  modern  chemistiy  or  sci- 
entific agriculture,  can  for  a  moment  deny  the  value  of  specific  ma- 
nures. It  is  the  great  platform  upon  which  the  scientific  culture  of 
the  present  day  stands,  and  which  raises  it  so  high  above  the  old 
empirical  routine  of  the  last  century.  But  in  order  to  be  able  to 
make  practical  application,  with  any  tolerable  chance  of  success,  of 
the  doctrine  of  special  manures,  we  must  have  before  us  careful 
analyses  of  the  composition  of  the  plants  we  propose  to  cultivate. 
Science  has  proved  to  us  that  there  are  substances  which  are  of 
universal  value  as  food  for  plants  ;  but  it  is  now  no  less  certain  that, 
as  the  composition  of  different  plants,  and  even  different  species  of 
plants,  differs  very  widely,  so  must  certain  substances,  essential  to 
the  growth  of  the  plant,  be  present  in  the  soil,  or  that  growth  is 
feeble  and  imperfect. 

A  little  observation  will  satisfy  any  careful  inquirer,  that  but 
little  is  yet  practically  known  of  the  proper  mode  of  manuring 


456 


FRUIT. 


orchards,  and  rendering  them  uniformly  productive.  To  say  that 
in  almost  every  neighborhood,  orchards  will  be  found  which  bear 
large  crops  of  fine  fruit,  while  others,  not  half  a  mile  off,  produce 
only  small  crops ;  that  in  one  part  of  the  country  a  given  kind  of 
fruit  is  always  large  and  fair,  and  in  another  it  is  always  spotted  and 
defective ;  that  barn-yard  manure  seems  to  produce  but  little  effect 
in  remedying  these  evils  ;  that  orchards  often  nearly  cease  bearing 
while  yet  the  trees  are  in  full  maturity,  and  by  no  means  in  a  worn- 
out  or  dying  condition :  to  say  all  this,  is  only  to  repeat  what  every 
experienced  cultivator  of  orchards  is  familiar  with,  but  for  which  few 
or  no  practical  cultivators  have  the  explanation  ready. 

We  have  seen  a  heavy  application  of  common  manure  made  to 
apple-trees,  which  were  in  this  inexplicable  condition  of  bearing  no 
sound  fruit,  without  producing  any  good  effects.  The  trees  grew 
more  luxuriantly,  but  the  fruit  was  still  knotty  and  inferior.  In  this 
state  of  things,  the  baffled  practical  man  very  properly  attributes  it 
to  some  inherent  defect  in  the  soil,  and  looks  to  the  chemist  for  aid. 

We  are  glad  to  be  able  to  say,  this  aid  is  forthcoming.  Many 
valuable  analyses  of  the  ashes  of  trees  and  plants,  have  been  made 
lately  at  Giessen,  and  may  be  found  in  the  appendix  to  the  last  edi- 
tion of  Liebig's  Agricultural  Chemistry.*  And  still  more  recently, 
Dr.  Emmons,  of  Albany,  well  known  by  his  labors  in  the  cause  of 
scientific  agriculture,  f  has  devoted  considerable  time  and  attention 
to  ascertaining  the  elements  which  enter  into  the  composition  of  the 
inorganic  parts  of  trees. 

The  result  of  this  investigation  we  consider  of  the  highest  im- 
portance to  the  fruit  cultivator  and  the  orchardist.  In  fact,  though 
still  imperfect,  it  clears  up  many  difficult  points,  and  gives  us  some 
basis  for  a  more  philosophical  system  of  manuring  orchards  than  has 
yet  prevailed. 

The  importance  of  the  gaseous  and  more  soluble  manures — am- 
monia, nitrogen,  etc.,  to  the  whole  vegetable  kingdom,  has  long  been 
pretty  thoroughly  appreciated.  The  old-fashioned,  practical  man, 
dating  from  Noah's  time,  who  stands  by  his  well-rotted  barn-yard 

*  Published  by  Wiley  &  Putnam,  New- York. 

f  See  his  quarto  voL  on  the  Agriculture  of  New- York,  lately  published, 
and  forming  part  of  the  State  survey. 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  MANURING  ORCHARDS.  457 

compost,  and  the  new-school  disciple,  who  uses  guano  and  liquid 
manures,  are  both  ready  witnesses  to  prove  the  universal  and  vital 
importance  of  these  animal  fertilizers, — manures  that  accelerate  the 
growth,  and  give  volume  and  bulk  to  every  part  of  a  tree  or  plant. 

But  the  value  and  importance  of  the  heavier  and  more  insoluble 
earthy  elements  have  often  been  disputed,  and,  though  ably  demon- 
strated of  late,  there  are  still  comparatively  few  who  understand 
their  application,  or  who  have  any  clear  and  definite  ideas  of  then- 
value  in  the  economy  of  vegetable  structure. 

To  get  at  the  exact  quantities  of  these  ingredients,  which  enter 
into  the  composition  of  plants,  it  is  necessary  to  analyze  their  ashes. 

It  is  not  our  purpose,  at  the  present  moment,  to  go  beyond  the 
limits  of  the  orchard.  We  shall  therefore  confine  ourselves  to  the 
most  important  elements  which  make  up  the  wood  and  bark  of  the 
apple,  the  pear,  and  the  grape-vine. 

According  to  Dr.  Emmons's  analysis,  in  100  parts  of  the  ashes 
of  the  sap-wood  of  the  apple-tree,  there  are  three  elements  that 
greatly  preponderate,  as  follows :  16  parts  potash,  17  parts  phosphate 
of  lime,  and  18  parts  lime.  In  the  bark  of  this  tree,  there  are 
4  parts  potash  and  5 1  parts  lime. 

100  parts  of  the  ashes  of  the  sap-wood  of  the  pear-tree,  show 
22  parts  potash,  27  parts  phosphate  of  lime,  and  12  parts  lime;  the 
bark  giving  6  parts  potash,  6  parts  phosphate,  and  30  parts  lime. 

The  analysis  of  the  common  wild  grape-vine,  shows  20  parts  pot- 
ash, 15  parts  phosphate  of  lime,  and  1 7  parts  lime,  to  every  100  parts ; 
the  bark  giving  1  part  potash,  5  parts  phosphate  of  lime,  and  39 
parts  lime. 

Now,  no  intelligent  cultivator  can  examine  these  results  (which 
we  have  given  thus  in  the  rough  *  to  simplify  the  matter)  without 

*  The  following  are  Dr.  Emmons's  exact  analyses : 

ASH  OF  THE  PEAR. 

Sap-wood.  Bark. 

Potash,          .....  22-25  6"20 
Soda,       .         ...         .  1-84 

Chlorine,       .         .         .         .         •     081  1^0 

Sulphuric  acid,    ....          0-50  1-80 

Phosphate  of  lime,     .                    .          .  21 '22  6"50 


458 


FRUIT. 


Deing  conscious  at  a  glance,  that  this  large  necessity  existing  in 
these  fruit-trees  for  potash,  phosphate  of  lime,  and  lime,  is  not  at  all 


Sap-wood. 

Bark. 

Phosphate  of  peroxide  of  iron, 

0'31 

Carbonic  acid,  .... 

27-69 

37-29 

Lime,       .  . 

12  "64 

30'36 

Magnesia,  ..... 

3*00 

9*40 

Silex,  ..... 

0'30 

0*40 

Coal,  ...... 

0*17 

0'65 

Organic  matter,  .... 

4'02 

4'20 

100-25 

98-30 

A  CTT     (\TP     IJITl  p  4PPTP 

Sap-wood. 

Bark. 

Potash,  ... 

16-19 

4-930 

Soda,       .         .         .          .       '  . 

3-11 

3-285 

Chloride  of  sodium,  .... 

0-42 

0-540 

Sulphate  of  lime,  .... 

0-05 

0-637 

Phosphate  of  peroxide  of  iron,         .  . 

Q.gQ 

0.375 

Phosphate  of  lime,  ... 

17  '50 

2-425 

Phosphate  of  magnesia, 

0-20 

Carbonic  acid, 

2910 

44-830 

Lime,  .          .                    .  ^-V*n 

18-63 

5T578 

Magnesia,  .  . 

8-40 

0*150 

Silica,  . 

0-85 

0-200 

Soluble  silica,  .... 

0-80 

0400 

Organic  matter,  .... 

4*60 

2'100 

100-65 

109450 

COMMON  WILD  GRAPE-VINE 

Wood. 

Bark. 

Potash,     .         .         .  . 

20-84 

I'll 

Soda,  ...... 

2-06 

0-27 

Chlorine,  ..... 

0-02 

040 

Sulphuric  acid,  .... 

0-23 

trace. 

Phosphate  of  lime, 

15-40 

5-04 

Phosphate  of  peroxide  of  iron, 

1-20 

5-04 

Carbonic  acid,  .... 

34-83 

32-22 

Lime,  .         .         .         ..  . 

11-33 

39-32 

Magnesia,  ..... 

4-40 

0-80 

Silex,      ; .  ,i#it. .       •               -.'  ,* 

2-80 

14-00 

Soluble  silica, 

o-oo 

0-30 

Coal  and  organic  matter, 

2-20 

1-70 

100-21 


100-86 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  MANURING  ORCHARDS.  459 

provided  for  by  the  common  system  of  manuring  orchards.  Hence, 
in  certain  soils,  where  a  part  or  all  of  these  elements  naturally  exist, 
we  see  both  the  finest  fruit  and  extraordinary  productiveness  in  the 
orchards.  In  other  soils,  well  suited  perhaps  for  many  other  crops, 
orchards  languish  and  are  found  unprofitable. 

More  than  this,  Dr.  Emmons  has  pointed  out  what  is  perhaps 
known  to  few  of  our  readers,  that  these  inorganic  substances  form, 
as  it  were,  the  skeleton  or  bones  of  all  vegetables  as  they  do  more 
tangibly  in  animals.  The  bones  of  animals  are  lime — in  the  form 
of  phosphate  and  carbonate — and  the  frailer  net-work  skeleton  of 
trunk,  leaves  and  fibres  in  plants,  is  formed  of  precisely  the  same 
substance.  The  bark,  the  veins  and  nerves  of  the  leaves,  the  skin 
of  fruit,  are  ail  formed  upon  a  framework  of  this  organized  salt  of 
lime,  which,  in  the  growth  of  the  plant,  is  taken  up  from  the  soil, 
and  circulates  freely  to  the  outer  extremities  of  the  tree  or  plant  in 
all  directions. 

As  these  elements,  which  we  have  named  as  forming  so  large  a 
part  of  the  ashes  of  plants,  are  found  in  animal  manures,  the  latter 
are  quite  sufficient  in  soils  where  they  are  not  naturally  deficient. 
But,  on  the  other  hand,  where  the  soil  is  wanting  in  lime,  potash 
and  phosphate  of  lime,  common  manures  will  not  and  do  not  an- 
swer the  purpose.  Experience  has  abundantly  proved  the  latter  po- 
sition ;  and  science  has  at  length  pointed  out  the  cause  of  the 
failure. 

The  remedy  is  simple  enough.  Lime,  potash  and  bones  (which 
latter  abound  in  the  phosphate)  are  cheap  materials,  easily  obtained 
in  any  part  of  the  country.  If  they  are  not  at  hand,  common 
toood  ashes,  which  contains  all  of  them,  is  an  easy  substitute,  and 
one  which  may  be  used  in  much  larger  quantities  than  it  is  com- 
monly applied,  with  the  most  decided  benefit  to  all  fruit-trees. 

The  more  scientific  cultivator  of  fruit  will  not  fail,  however,  to 
observe  that  there  is  a  very  marked  difference  in  the  proportion  of 
these  inorganic  matters  in  the  ashes  of  the  trees  under  our  notice. 
Thus,  potash  and  phosphate  of  lime  enter  much  more  largely  mto 
the  composition  of  the  pear  than  they  do  in  that  of  the  apple  tree ; 
while  lime  is  much  more  abundant  in  the  apple  than  in  the  pear ; 
the  ashes  of  the  bark  of  the  apple-tree  being  more  than  half  lime. 


460 


FRUIT. 


Potash  and  lime  are  also  found  to  be  the  predcmi  lant  elements  of 
the  inorganic  structure  of  the  grape-vine. 

Hence  potash  and  bone  dust  will  be  the  principal  substances  to 
nourish  the  structure  of  the  pear-tree  ;  lime,  the  principal  substance 
for  the  apple  ;  and  potash  for  the  grape-vine  ;  though  each  of  the 
others  are  also  highly  essential. 

Since  these  salts  of  lime  penetrate  to  the  remotest  extremities  of 
the  tree ;  since,  indeed,  they  are  the  foundation  upon  which  a 
healthy  structure  of  all  the  other  parts  must  rest,  it  appears  to  us  a 
rational  deduction  that  upon  their  presence,  in  sufficient  quantity, 
must  depend  largely  the  general  healthy  condition  of  the  leaves  and 
fruit.  Hence,  it  is  not  unlikely  that  certain  diseases  of  fruit,  known 
as  the  bitter  rot  in  apples,  the  mildew  in  grapes,  and  "  cracking  "  in 
pears,  known  and  confined  to  certain  districts  of  the  country, 
may  arise  from  a  deficiency  of  these  inorganic  elements  in  the  soil 
of  those  districts,  (not  overlooking  sulphate  of  iron,  so  marked  in 
its  effect  on  the  health  of  foliage.)  Careful  experiment  will  deter- 
mine this ;  and  if  such  should  prove  to  be  the  case,  one  of  the 
greatest  obstacles  to  universal  orchard  culture  will  be  easily  re- 
moved.* 

What  we  have  here  endeavored  to  convey  of  the  importance 
of  certain  specific  manures  for  fruit-trees,  is  by  no  means  all  theory. 
We  could  already  give  numerous  practical  illustrations  to  fortify  it. 
Two  will  perhaps  suffice  for  the  present. 

The  greatest  orchard  in  America,  most  undeniably,  is  that  at 
Pelham  farm,  on  the  Hudson.  How  many  barrels  of  apples  are  raised 

*  It  -will  be  remembered  that,  in  our  work  on  Fruits,  we  opposed  the 
theory  that  all  the  old  pears,  liable  to  crack  along  the  sea-coast,  and  in  some 
other  sections  of  the  country,  were  "  worn  out."  We  attributed  their  ap- 
parent decline  to  unfavorable  soil,  injudicious  culture  and  ungenial  climate. 
A  good  deal  of  observation  since  those  views  were  published,  has  convinced 
us  that  "  cracking  "  in  the  pear  is  to  be  attributed  more  to  an  exhaustion,  or 
a  want  of  certain  necessary  elements  in  the  soil,  than  to  any  other  cause. 
Age  has  little  or  nothing  to  do  with  it,  since  Van  Moris  Leon  Le  Clerc,  one 
of  the  newest  and  most  vigorous  of  peal's,  has  cracked  in  some  soils  for  the 
past  two  years  around  Boston,  though  perfectly  fair  in  other  soils  there,  and 
in  the  interior. 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  MANURING  ORCHARDS.  461 


there  annually,  we  are  not  informed.  But  we  do  know,  first,  that 
the  crop  this  season,  numbered  several  thousand  barrels  of  New 
town  pippins,  of  a  size,  flavor  and  beauty  that  we  never  saw  sur 
passed  ;  and  second,  that  the  Pelham  Newtown  pippins  are  as  well 
known  in  Covent  Garden  market,  London,  as  a  Bank  of  England 
note,  and  can  as  readily  be  turned  into  cash,  with  the  highest  pre- 
mium over  any  other  goods  and  chattels  of  the  like  description 
Now  the  great  secret  of  the  orchard  culture  at  the  Pelham  farm,  if 
the  abundant  use  of  lime.  Not  that  high  culture  and  plenty  of 
other  necessary  food  are  wanting  ;  but  that  lime  is  the  great  basis 
of  large  crops  and  smooth,  high-flavored  fruit. 

Again,  the  greatest  difficulty  in  fruit  culture  in  America,  is  to 
grow  the  foreign  grape  in  the  open  air.  It  is  not  heat  nor  fertility 
that  is  wanting,  for  one  section  or  another  of  the  country  can  give 
both  these  in  perfection ;  but  in  all  sections  the  fruit  mildews,  and 
is,  on  the  whole,  nearly  worthless.  An  intelligent  cultivator,  living 
in  a  warm  and  genial  corner  of  Canada  West,  (bordering  on  the 
western  part  of  Lake  Erie,)  had  been  more  than  usually  successful 
for  several  seasons  in  maturing  several  varieties  of  foreign  grapes 
in  the  open  air.  At  length  they  began  to  fail — even  upon  the 
young  vines,  and  the  mildew  made  its  appearance  to  render  nearly 
the  whole  crop  worthless.  Last  season,  this  gentleman,  following  a 
hint  in  this  journal,  gave  one  of  his  grape  borders  a  heavy  dressing 
of  wood  ashes.  These  ashes  contained,  of  course,  both  the  potash 
and  the  lime  so  necessary  to  the  grape.  He  had  the  satisfaction  of 
raising,  this  season,  a  crop  of  fair  and  excellent  grapes,  (of  which 
we  had  occular  proof,)  from  this  border,  while  the  other  vines  of  the 
same  age  (and  treated,  otherwise,  in  the  same  way)  bore  only  mil- 
dewed and  worthless  fruit.  We  consider  both  these  instances  ex- 
cellent illustrations  of  the  value  of  specific  manures. 

We  promise  to  return  to  this  subject  again.  In  the  mean  time 
it  may  not  be  useless  to  caution  some  of  our  readers  against  pursu- 
ing the  wholesale  course  with  specifics  which  all  quack  doctors  are  so 
fond  of  recommending — i.  e.,  "  if  a  thing  is  good,  you  cannot  give 
too  much."  A  tree  is  not  all  bones,  and  therefore  something  must 
be  considered  besides  its  anatomical  structure — important  as  that 


462 


FRUIT. 


may  be.  The  good,  old-fashioned,  substantial  nourishment  must  not 
be  withheld,  and  a  suitable  ration  from  the  compost  or  manure 
heap,  as  usual,  will  by  no  means  prevent  our  orchards  being  bene- 
fited all  the  more  by  the  substances  of  which  they  have  especial 
need,  in  certain  portions  of  their  organization. 


IV. 


THE  VINEYARDS  OF  THE  WEST. 

August,  1850. 

TO  sit  under  our  own  vine  and  fig-tree,  with  no  one  to  make  us 
afraid,  is  the  most  ancient  and  sacred  idea  of  a  life  of  security, 
contentment,  and  peace.  In  a  national  sense,  we  think  we  may  be- 
gin to  lay  claim  to  this  species  of  comfort,  so  largely  prized  by  our 
ancestors  of  the  patriarchal  ages.  The  southern  States  have  long 
boasted  their  groves  and  gardens  of  fig-trees ;  and  there  is  no  longer 
any  doubt  regarding  the  fact,  that  the  valley  of  the  Ohio,  with  its 
vine-clad  hills,  will  soon  afford  a  resting-place  for  millions  of  cultiva- 
tors, who  may  sit  down  beneath  the  shadow  of  their  own  vines, 
with  none  to  make  them  afraid. 

There  has  been  so  much  "  stuff,"  of  all  descriptions,  made  in  va- 
rious parts  of  the  country  under  the  name  of  domestic  wine — ninety- 
nine  hundredths  of  which  is  not  half  so  good  or  so  wholesome  as 
poor  cider — that  most  persons  whose  palates  are  accustomed  to  the 
fine  products  of  France,  Spain,  or  Madeira,  have,  after  tasting  of  the 
compounds  alluded  to,  concluded  that  it  was  either  a  poor  piece  of 
patriotism,  or  a  bad  joke, — this  trying  to  swallow  American  wine. 

On  the  other  hand,  various  enterprising  Frenchmen,  observing 
that  the  climate  of  a  large  part  of  the  Union  ripened  peaches  and 
other  fruits  better  than  their  own  country,  naturally  concluded  that 
if  they  brought  over  the  right  kinds  of  French  wine  grapes,  wine 
must  be  produced  here  as  good  as  that  made  at  home.  Yet,  though 
the  experiment  has  been  tried  again  and  again  by  practical  vigne- 
rons,  who  know  the  mysteries  of  cultivation,  and  wine  merchants 


464 


FRUIT. 


who  had  an  abundance  of  capital  at  their  command,  there  is  no 
record  of  one  single  case  of  even  tolerable  success.  In  no  part  of 
the  United  States  is  the  climate  adapted  to  the  vineyard  culture  of 
the  foreign  grape. 

So  much  as  this  was  learned,  indeed,  twenty  years  ago.  But 
was  the  matter  to  be  given  up  in  this  manner  ?  Could  it  be  possi- 
ble that  a  vast  continent,  over  which,  from  one  end  to  the  other,  the 
wild  grape  grows  in  such  abundance  that  the  Northmen,  who  were 
perhaps  the  first  discoverers,  gave  it  the  beautiful  name  of  Vinland, 
should  never  be  the  land  of  vineyards  ?  There  were  at  least  two 
men  who  still  believed  wine-making  possible ;  and  who,  twenty 
years  or  more  ago,  noticing  that  the  foreign  grape  proved  worthless 
in  this  country,  had  faith  in  the  good  qualities  of  the  indigenous 
stock. 

We  mean,  of  course,  Major  Adlum,  of  the  District  of  Columbia, 
and  Nicholas  Longworth,  Esq.,  of  Ohio.  Both  these  gentlemen, 
after  testing  the  foreign  grape,  abandoned  it,  and  took  up  the  most 
promising  native  sorts ;  and  both  at  last  settled  apon  the  Catawba, 
as  the  only  wine  grape,  yet  known,  worthy  of  cultivation  in  Ame- 
rica. 

Major  Adlum  planted  a  vineyard,  and  made  some  wine,  which 
we  tasted.  It  was  of  only  tolerable  quality ;  but  it  proved  that 
good  wine  can  be  made  of  native  grapes,  the  growth  of  our  own 
soil.  And  though  Adlum  was  not  a  thorough  cultivator,  he  pub- 
lished a  volume  on  the  culture  of  native  grapes,  which  roused  pub- 
lic attention  to  the  subject.  He  made  the  assertion  before  he  died, 
that  in  introducing  the  Cawtaba  grape  to  public  attention,  he  had 
done  more  for  the  benefit  of  the  country  than  if  he  had  paid 
off  our  then  existing  national  debt.  And  to  this  sentiment  there 
are  many  in  the  western  States  who  are  ready  now  to  subscribe 
heartily. 

Mr.  Longworth  is  a  man  of  different  stamp.  "With  abundant 
capital,  a  great  deal  of  patriotism,  and  a  large  love  of  the  culture  of 
the  soil,  he  adds  an  especial  talent  for  overcoming  obstacles,  and 
great  pertinacity  in  carrying  his  point.  What  he  cannot  do  him- 
self, he  very  well  knows  how  to  find  other  persons  capable  of  doing. 
Hence  he  pursued  quite  the  opposite  system  from  those  who  under- 


THE  VINEYARDS  OF  THE  WEST. 


46S 


took  the  naturalization  of  the  foreign  grape.  He  advertised  for  na- 
tive grapes  of  any  and  every  sort,  planted  all  and  tested  all ;  and  at 
last,  he  too  has  come  to  the  conclusion  that  the  Catawba  is  the 
wine  grape  of  America. 

"  What  sort  of  wine  does  the  Catawba  make  ?"  inquires  some 
of  our  readers,  who  like  nothing  but  Madeira  and  Sherry ;  "  and 
what  do  you  think  will  be  the  moral  effect  of  making  an  abundance 
of  cheap  wine?"  asks  some  ultra  temperance  friend  and  reader. 
We  will  try  to  answer  both  these  questions. 

The  natural  wine  which  the  Cawtaba  makes  is  a  genuine  hock — 
a  wine  so  much  like  the  ordinary  wines  of  the  Rhine,  that  we  could 
put  three  of  the  former  bottles  among  a  dozen  of  the  latter,  and 
it  would  puzzle  the  nicest  connoisseur  to  select  them  by  either  color 
or  flavor.  In  other  words,  the  Catawba  wine  (made  as  it  is  on  the 
Ohio,  made  without  adding  either  alcohol  or  sugar)  is  a  pleasant 
light  hock, — a  little  stronger  than  Rhine  wine,  but  still  far  lighter 
and  purer  than  nineteen-twentieths  of  the  wines  that  find  their  way 
to  this  country.  Its  subacid  flavor  renders  it  especially  grateful,  as 
a  summer  drink,  in  so  hot  a  climate  as  ours ;  and  the  wholesome- 
ness  of  the  Rhine  wine  no  one  will  deny.*  Indeed,  certain  mala- 
dies, troublesome  enough  in  other  lands,  are  never  known  in  hock 
countries ;  and  though  the  taste  for  hock — like  that  for  tomatoes — 
is  an  acquired  one,  it  is  none  the  less  natural  for  that ;  any  more 
than  walking  is,  which,  so  far  as  our  observation  goes,  is  not  one  of 
the  things  we  come  into  the  world  with,  like  seeing  and  hearing. 

As  to  the  temperance  view  of  this  matter  of  wine-making,  we 
think  a  very  little  familiarity  with  the  state  of  the  case  will  settle 
this  point.  Indeed,  we  are  inclined  to  adopt  the  views  of  Dr.  Flagg, 
of  Cincinnati.  "  The  temperance  cause  is  rapidly  preparing  public 
sentiment  for  the  introduction  of  pure  American  wine.  So  long  as 
public  taste  remains  vitiated  by  the  use  of  malt  and  alcoholic  drinks, 
it  will  be  impossible  to  introduce  light  pleasant  wine,  except  to  a 
very  limited  extent ;  but  just  in  proportion  as  strong  drinks  are 
abandoned,  a  more  wholesome  one  will  be  substituted.    Instead  of 

*  Mr.  Longworth  is  now  making  large  quantities  of  sparkling  Catawba 
wine,  of  excellent  quality — perhaps  more  nearly  resembling  sparkling  hock 
than  Champagne. 

30 


466 


FRUIT. 


paying  millions  to  foreigners  for  deleterious  drinks,  let  us  produce 
from  our  own  hillsides  a  wholesome  beverage,  that  will  be  within 
reach  of  us  all — the  poor  as  well  as  the  rich." 

Very  few  of  the  friends  of  temperance  are  perhaps  aware  of  two 
facts.  First,  that  pure  light  wines,  such  as  the  Catawba  of  this  coun- 
try, and  the  Hock  and  Clarets  of  Europe,  contain  so  little  alcohol 
(only  1  or  8  per  cent.)  that  they  are  not  intoxicating  unless  drank 
in  a  most  inordinate  manner,  to  which,  from  the  quantity  required, 
there  is  no  temptation.  On  the  other  hand,  they  exhilarate  the  spi- 
rits, and  act  in  a  salutary  manner  on  the  respiratory  organs.  We 
do  not  mean  to  say  that  men  could  not  live  and  breathe  just  as  well, 
if  there  were  no  such  thing  as  wine  known  ;  but  that  since  the  time 
of  Noah,  men  will  not  be  contented  with  merely  living  and  breath- 
ing ;  and  it  is  therefore  better  to  provide  them  with  proper  and 
wholesome  food  and  drink,  than  to  put  improper  aliments  within 
their  reach. 

Second,  that  it  is  universally  admitted  that  in  all  countries  where 
light  wines  so  abound  that  the  peasant  or  working-man  may  have  his 
pint  of  light  wine  per  day,  drunkenness  is  a  thing  xmknown.  On  the 
other  hand,  in  all  countries  which  do  not  produce  claret,  hock,  or 
some  other  wholesome  light  wine,  ardent  spirits  are  used,  and  drunk- 
enness is  the  invariable  result.  As  there  is  no  nation  in  the  world 
where  only  cold  water  is  drank,  (unless  opium  is  used,)  and  since 
large  bodies  of  men  will  live  in  cities,  instead  of  forests  and  pas- 
tures, there  is  not  likely  to  be  such  a  nation,  let  us  choose  whether 
it  is  better  to  have  national  temperance  with  light  wines,  or  national 
intemperance  with  ardent  spirits.  The  question  resolves  itself  into 
that  narrow  compass,  at  last. 

As  we  think  there  are  few  who  will  hesitate  which  horn  of  the 
dilemma  to  choose,  (especially,  as  an  Irishman  would  say,  "  where 
one  is  no  horn  at  all,")  it  is,  we  think,  worth  while  to  glance  for  a 
moment  at  the  state  of  the  vine  culture  in  the  valley  of  the  Ohio. 

We  have  before  us  a  very  interesting  little  pamphlet,  full  of 
practical  details  and  suggestions  on  the  subject.*    It  is  understood 

*  A  Treatise  on  Grape  Culture  in  Vineyards  in  the  vicinity  of  Cincin- 
nati :  By  a  member  of  the  Cincinnati  Horticultural  Society.  Sold  by  I.  F. 
De  Silver,  Main-street,  Cincinnati. 


THE  VINEYARDS  OF  THE  WEST. 


467 


to  be  from  the  pen  of  R.  Buchanan,  Esq.,  president  of  the  Cincin- 
nati Horticultural  Society.  It  deals  more  with  facts,  actual  expe- 
rience, and  observation,  and  less  with  speculation,  supposition,  and 
belief,  than  any  thing  on  this  topic  that  has  yet  appeared  in  the 
United  States.  In  other  words,  a  man  may  take  it,  and  plant  a 
vineyard,  and  raise  grapes  with  success.  He  may  even  make  good 
wine ;  but  no  book  can  wholly  teach  this  latter  art,  which  imist 
come  by  the  use  of  one's  eyes  and  hands  in  the  business  itself. 

Among  other  interesting  facts,  which  we  glean  from  this  pam- 
phlet, are  the  following :  The  number  of  acres  of  vineyard  culture, 
within  twenty  miles  of  Cincinnati,  is  seven  hundred  and  forty-three. 
Those  belong  to  264  proprietors  and  tenants.  Mr.  Longworth  owns 
122  acres,  cultivated  by  27  tenants. 

The  average  product  per  acre  in  1848  (a  good  season)  was  300 
gallons  to  the  acre.  In  1849  (the  worst  year  ever  known)  it  was 
100  gallons.  One  vineyard  of  two  acres  (that  of  Mr.  Rentz)  has 
yielded  1300  gallons  in  a  season.  New  Catawba  wine,  at  the  press, 
brings  75  cents  a  gallon.  When  ready  for  sale,  it  readily  commands 
about  $1.25  per  gallon. 

The  best  vineyard  soil  on  the  Ohio,  as  in  the  old  world,  is  one 
abounding  with  lime.  A  "  diy  calcareous  loam  "  is  the  favorite  soil 
near  Cincinnati.  This  is  well  drained  and  trenched,  two  or  three 
feet  deep,  before  planting  the  vines ;  trenching  being  considered  in- 
dispensable, and  being  an  important  part  of  the  expense.  The  vines, 
one  year  old,  may  be  had  for  $6  per  100,  and  are  usually  planted 
three  by  six  feet  apart — about  2,420  vines  to  the  acre.  They  are 
trained  to  single  poles  or  stakes,  in  the  simple  mode  common  in 
most  wine  countries ;  and  the  product  of  the  Catawba  per  acre  is 
considerably  more  than  that  of  the  wine-grape  in  France. 


V. 


ON  THE  IMPROVEMENT  OF  VEGETABLE  RACES. 

April,  1852. 

NOTWITHSTANDING  all  the  drawbacks  of  the  violent  ex- 
tremes of  climate,  the  United  States,  and  especially  all  that 
belt  of  country  lying  between  the  Mohawk  and  the  James  Rivers,  is 
probably  as  good  a  fruit  country  as  can  be  found  in  the  world. 
Whilst  every  American,  travelling  in  the  north  of  Europe,  observes 
that  very  choice  fruit,  grown  at  great  cost,  and  with  the  utmost  care, 
is  more  certainly  to  be  found  in  the  gardens  of  the  wealthy  than 
with  us,  he  also  notices  that  the  broad-cast  production  of  tolerably 
good  fruit  in  orchards  and  gardens,  is  almost  nothing  in  Europe, 
when  compared  to  what  is  seen  in.  America.  As  we  have  already 
stated,  one-fourth  of  the  skill  and  care  expended  on  fruit  culture  in 
the  north  of  Europe,  bestowed  in  America,  would  absolutely  load 
every  table  with  the  finest  fruits  of  temperate  climates. 

As  yet,  however,  we  have  not  made  any  progress  beyond  com- 
mon orchard  culture.  In  the  majority  of  cases,  the  orchard  is  planted, 
cultivated  two  or  three  years  with  the  plough,  pruned  badly  three 
or  four  times,  and  then  left  to  itself.  It  is  very  true,  that  in  ths 
fruit  gardens,  which  begin  to  surround  some  of  our  older  cities,  the 
well-prepared  soil,  careful  selections  of  varieties,  judicious  culture 
and  pruning,  have  begun  to  awaken  in  the  minds  of  the  old  fash- 
ioned cultivators  a  sense  of  astonishment  as  to  the  size  and  perfec- 
tion to  which  certain  fruits  can  be  brought,  which  begins  to  react 
on  the  country  at  large.  Little  by  little,  the  orchardists  are  begin- 
ning to  be  aware  that  it  is  better  to  plant  fifty  trees  carefully,  in 


ON  THE  IMPROVEMENT  OF  VEGETABLE  RACES.  469 

well-prepared  soil,  than  to  stick  in  five  hundred,  by  thrusting  the 
roots  in  narrow  holes,  to  struggle  out  an  imperfect  existence  ;  little 
by  little,  the  horticultural  shows  and  the  markets  have  proved,  that 
while  fruit-trees  of  the  best  standard  sorts  cost  no  more  than  those 
of  indifferent  quality — the  fruit  they  bear  is  worth  ten  times  as 
much ;  and  thus  by  degrees,  the  indifferent  orchards  are  being  reno- 
vated by  grafting,  manuring,  or  altogether  displaced  by  new  ones  of 
superior  quality. 

Still,  there  are  some  important  points  in  fruit  culture  overlooked. 
One  of  the  most  conspicuous  of  these  is,  that  varieties  may  be 
found,  or,  if  not  existing,  may  be  originated  to  suit  every  portion  of 
the  United  States.  Because  a  fruit-grower  in  the  State  of  Maine,  or 
the  State  of  Louisiana,  does  not  find,  after  making  a  trial  of  the 
fruits  that  are  of  the  highest  quality  in  New- York  or  Pensylvannia, 
that  they  are  equally  first  rate  with  him,  it  by  no  means  follows  that 
such  wished-for  varieties  may  not  be  produced.  Although  there 
are  a  few  sorts  of  fruits,  like  the  Bartlett  Pear,  and  the  Eoxbury 
Russet  Apple,  that  seem  to  have  a  kind  of  cosmopolitan  constitu- 
tion, by  which  they  are  almost  equally  at  home  in  a  cool  or  a  hot 
country,  they  are  the  exceptions,  and  not  the  rule.  The  English 
Gooseberries  may  be  said  not  to  be  at  home  any  where  in  our 
country,  except  in  the  cool,  northern  parts  of  New  England — Maine, 
for  example.  The  foreign  grape  is  fit  for  out-of-door  culture  no- 
where in  the  United  States,  and  even  the  Newtown  Pippin  and  the 
Spitzenberg  apples,  so  unsurpassed  on  the  Hudson,  are  worth  little  or 
nothing  on  the  Delaware.  On  the  other  hand,  in  every  part  of  the 
country,  we  see  fruits  constantly  being  originated — chance  seedlings 
in  the  orchards,  perfectly  adapted  to  the  climate  and  the  soil,  and 
occasionally  of  very  fine  quality. 

An  apple-tree  which  pleased  the  emigrant  on  his  homestead  on 
the  Connecticut,  is  carried,  by  means  of  grafts,  to  his  new  land  in 
Missouri,  and  it  fails  to  produce  the  same  fine  pippins  that  it  did  at 
home.  But  he  sows  the  seeds  of  that  tree,  and  from  among  many 
of  indifferent  quality,  he  will  often  find  one  or  more  that  shall  not 
only  equal  or  surpass  its  parent  in  all  its  ancient  New  England  fla- 
vor, but  shall  have  a  western  constitution,  to  make  that  flavor  per- 
manent in  the  land  of  its  birth. 


470 


FRUIT. 


In  this  way,  and  for  the  most  part  by  the  ordinary  chances  and 
results  of  culture,  and  without  a  direct  application  of  a  scientific 
system,  what  may  be  called  the  natural  limits  of  any  fruit-tree  or 
plant,  may  be  largely  extended.  We  say  largely,  because  there  are 
certain  boundaries  beyond  which  the  plants  of  the  tropics  cannot 
be  acclimated.  The  sugar  cane  cannot,  by  an)  process  yet  known, 
be  naturalized  on  Lake  Superior,  or  the  Indian  corn  on  Hudson's 
Bay.  But  every  body  at  the  South  knows  that  the  range  of  the 
sugar  cane  has  been  gradually  extended  northward,  more  than  one 
hundred  miles ;  and  the  Indian  corn  is  cultivated  now,  even  far 
north  in  Canada. 

It  is  by  watching  these  natural  laws,  as  seen  here  and  there  in 
irregular  examples,  and  reducing  them  to  something  like  a  system, 
and  acting  upon  the  principles  which  may  be  deduced  from  them, 
that  we  may  labor  diligently  towards  a  certain  result,  and  not  trust 
to  chance,  groping  about  in  the  dark,  blindly. 

Although  the  two  modes  by  which  the  production  of  a  new  va 
riety  of  a  fruit  or  flower — the  first  by  saving  the  seeds  of  the  very 
fruit  only,  and  the  other  by  cross-breeding  when  the  flowers  are 
about  expanding — are  very  well  known,  and  have  been  largely  prac- 
tised by  the  florists  and  gardeners  of  Europe  for  many  years,  in 
bringing  into  existence  most  of  the  fine  vegetables  and  flowers,  and 
many  of  the  fruits  that  we  now  possess,  it  is  remarkable  that  little 
attention  has  been  paid  in  all  these  efforts  to  acclimating  the  new 
sorts  by  scientific  reproduction  from  seed.  Thus,  in  the  case  of 
flowers — while  the  catalogues  are  filled  with  new  verbenas  every 
year,  no  one,  as  we  can  learn,  has  endeavored  to  originate  a  hardy 
verbena,  though  one  of  the  trailing  purple  species  is  a  hardy  herba- 
ceous border  flower — and  perhaps  hybrids  might  be  raised  between  it 
and  the  scarlet  soits,  that  would  be  lasting  and  invaluable  ornaments 
to  the  garden.  So  with  the  gooseberry.  This  fruit  shrub,  so  fine 
in  the  damp  climate  of  England,  is  so  unsuited  to  the  United  States 
generally — or  at  least  most  of  the  English  sorts  are — that  not  one 
bush  in  twenty,  bears  fruit  free  from  mildew.  And  yet,  so  far  as 
we  know,  no  horticulturist  has  attempted  to  naturalize  the  cultivated 
gooseberry  in  the  only  way  it  is  likely  to  become  naturalized,  viz. — 
by  raising  new  varieties  from  seed  in  this  country,  so  that  they  may 


ON  THE  IMPROVEMENT  OF  VEGETABLE  RACES.  471 


have  American  constitutions,  adapted  to  the  American  climate — 
and  therefore  not  likely  to  mildew.  The  same  thing  is  true  of  the 
foreign  grape.  Millions  of  roots  of  the  foreign  grape  have,  first 
and  last,  been  planted  in  the  United  States.  Hardly  one  can  be 
pointed  to  that  actually  "  succeeds "  in  the  open-air  culture — not 
from  want  of  heat  or  light — for  we  have  the  greatest  abundance  of 
both  ;  but  from  the  want  of  constitutional  adaptation.  And  still 
the  foreign  grape  is  abandoned,  except  for  vineries,  without  a  fair 
trial  of  the  only  modes  by  which  it  would  naturally  be  hoped  to  ac- 
climate it,  viz. — raising  seedlings  here,  and  crossing  it  with  our  best 
native  sorts. 

Every  person  interested  in  horticulture,  must  stumble  upon  facts 
almost  daily,  that  teach  us  how  much  may  be  done  by  a  new  race 
or  generation,  in  plants  as  well  as  men,  that  it  is  utterly  out  of  the 
question  for  the  old  race  to  accomplish.  Compare,  in  the  Western 
States,  the  success  of  a  colony  of  foreign  emigrants  in  subduing  the 
wilderness  and  mastering  the  land,  with  that  of  another  company 
of  our  own  race — say  of  New  Englanders.  The  one  has  to  contend 
with  all  his  old-world  prejudices,  habits  of  labor,  modes  of  working ; 
the  other  being  "  to  the  manor  born,"  &c,  seizes  the  Yankee  ^axe, 
and  the  forest,  for  the  first  time,  acknowledges  its  master.  While 
the  old-countryman  is  endeavoring  to  settle  himself  snugly,  and 
make  a  little  neighborhood  comfortable,  the  American  husbandman 
has  cleared  and  harvested  a  whole  state. 

As  in  the  man  so  in  the  plant.  A  race  should  be  adapted  to 
the  soil  by  being  produced  upon  it,  of  the  best  possible  materials. 
The  latter  is  as  indispensable  as  the  first — as  it  will  not  wholly  suffice 
that  a  man  or  a  tree  should  be  indigenous — or  our  American  In- 
dians, or  our  Chickasaw  Plums,  would  never  have  given  place  to 
either  the  Caucasian  race,  or  the  luscious  "  Jefferson  ;" — but  the 
best  race  being  taken  at  the  starting  point,  the  highest  utility  and 
beauty  will  be  found  to  spring  from  individuals  adapted  by  birth, 
constitution,  and  education,  to  the  country.  Among  a  thousand  na- 
tive Americans,  there  may  be  nine  hundred  no  better  suited  to  labor 
of  the  body  or  brains,  than  so  many  Europeans — but  there  will  be 
five  or  ten  that  will  reach  a  higher  level  of  adaptation,  or  to  use  a 


472 


FRUIT. 


western  phrase,  "  climb  higher  and  dive  deeper,"  than  any  man  out 
of  America. 

We  are  not  going  to  be  led  into  a  physiological  digression  on 
the  subject  of  the  inextinguishable  rights  of  a  superior  organization 
in  certain  men  and  races  of  men,  which  nature  every  day  reaffirms, 
notwithstanding  the  socialistic  and  democratic  theories  of  our  poli- 
ticians. But  we  will  undertake  to  say,  that  if  the  races  or  plants 
were  as  much  improved  as  they  might  be,  and  as  much  adapted  to 
the  various  soils  and  climates  of  the  Union,  as  they  ought  to  be, 
there  is  not  a  single  square  mile  in  the  United  States,  that  might 
not  boast  its  peaches,  melons,  apples,  grapes,  and  all  the  other  luxu- 
ries of  the  garden  now  confined  to  a  comparatively  limited  range. 

And  this  is  not  only  the  most  interesting  of  all  fields  for  the 
lover  of  the  country  and  the  garden,  but  it  is  that  one  precisely 
ready  to  be  put  in  operation  at  this  season.  The  month  of  April  is 
the  blossoming  season  over  a  large  part  of  the  country,  and  the  blos- 
som governs  and  fixes  the  character  of  the  new  race,  by  giving  a 
character  to  the  seed.  Let  those  who  are  not  already  familiar  with 
hybridizing  and  cross-breeding  of  plants — always  effected  when  they 
are  in  bloom — read  the  chapter  on  this  subject  in  our  "  Fruit  Trees," 
or  any  other  work  which  treats  of  this  subject.  Let  them  ascertain 
what  are  the  desiderata  for  their  soil  and  climate,  which  have  not 
yet  been  supplied,  and  set  about  giving  that  character  to  the  new 
seedlings,  which  a  careful  selection  from  the  materials  at  hand,  and 
a  few  moments  light  and  pleasant  occupation  will  afford.  If  the 
man  who  only  made  two  blades  of  grass  grow  where  one  grew  be- 
fore, has  been  pronounced  a  benefactor  to  mankind,  certainly  he  is 
far  more  so  who  originates  a  new  variety  of  grain,  vegetable,  or 
fruit,  adapted  to  a  soil  and  climate  where  it  before  refused  to  grow 
— since  thousands  may  continue  to  reap  the  benefit  of  the  labors  of 
the  latter  for  an  indefinite  length  of  time,  while  the  former  has  only 
the  merit  of  being  a  good  farmer  for  the  time  being. 


LETTERS  FROM  ENGLAND. 


LETTERS  FROM  ENGLAND. 


I 

WAEWICK  CASTLE:  K35NIL  WORTH :  STRATFORD-ON- 
AVON. 

July,  1850. 

MY  DEAR  SIR : — As,  after  looking  at  some  constellation  in  a 
summer  niglit,  one  remembers  most  vividly  its  largest  and 
most  potent  star,  so,  from  amid  a  constellation  of  fine  country-seats, 
I  can  write  you  to-day  only  of  my  visit  to  one,  but  that  one  which, 
for  its  peculiar  extent,  overtops  all  the  rest — Warwick  Castle. 

Warwick  Castle,  indeed,  combines  in  itself  perhaps  more  of  ro- 
mantic and  feudal  interest  than  any  actual  residence  in  Europe,  and 
for  this  very  reason,  because  it  unites  in  itself  the  miracle  of  exhib- 
iting at  the  same  moment  hoar  antiquity,  and  the  actual  vivid  pre- 
sent, having  been  held  and  maintained  from  first  to  last  by  the  same 
family.  In  most  of  the  magnificent  country-seats  of  England,  it  is 
rather  vast  extent  and  enormous  expense  which  impresses  one.  If 
they  are  new,  they  are  sometimes  overloaded  with  elaborate  details  ;* 

*  Like  Eton  Hall,  near  Liverpool,  perhaps  visited  by  more  Americans 
than  any  other  seat — though  the  architecture  is  meretricious,  and  the  whole 
place  as  wanting  in  genuine  taste  as  it  is  abounding  in  evidences  of  immense 
wealth.  "Warwick  Castle  bears,  to  an  American,  the  same  relation  to  all 
modern  castles  that  the  veritable  Noah's  ark,  if  it  could  be  found  still  in  fall 
preservation,  would  to  a  model  made  by  an  ingenious  antiquarian. 


HQ 


LETTERS  FROM  ENGLAND. 


if  old,  they  are  often  modernized  in  so  tasteless  a  manner  as  to  des- 
troy all  sentiment  of  antiquity.  Plate  glass  windows  ill  accord  with 
antique  casements,  and  Paris  furniture  and  upholstery  are  not  in 
keeping  with  apartments  of  the  time  of  Elizabeth. 

In  Warwick  Castle  and  all  that  belongs  to  it,  I  found  none  of 
this.  Ah  was  entire  harmony,  and  I  lingered  within  and  about  it, 
enjoying  its  absolue  perfection,  as  if  the  whole  were  only  conjured 
up  by  an  enchanter's  spell,  and  would  soon  dissolve  into  thin  air. 
And  yet,  on  the  contrary,  I  knew  that  here  was  a  building  which  is 
more  than  nine  hundred  years  old ;  which  has  been  the  residence 
of  successive  generations  of  the  same  family  for  centuries ;  which 
was  the  fortress  of  that  mightiest  of  English  subjects,  Warwick, 
u  the  great  king-maker,"  (who  boasted  that  he  had  deposed  three 
English  sovereigns  and  placed  three  in  their  vacant  throne,)  which, 
long  before  the  discovery  of  America,  was  the  scene  of  wild  jarring 
and  haughty  chivalry,  bloody  prowess — yes,  and  of  gentle  love  and 
sweet  affections,  but  which,  as  if  defying  time,  is  still  a  castle,  as 
real  in  its  character  as  a  feudal  stronghold,  and  yet  as  complete  a 
baronial  residence,  as  the  imagination  can  conceive,  la  an  Ameri- 
can, whose  country  is  but  two  hundred  years  old,  the  bridging  over 
such  a  vast  chasm  of  time  by  the  domestic  memorials  of  a  single 
family,  when,  as  in  this  case,  that  family  has  so  made  its  mark  upon 
the  early  annals  of  his  own  race,  there  is  something  that  approaches 
the  sublime. 

The  small  town  of  Warwick,  a  quaint  old  place,  which  still 
bears  abundant  traces  of  its  Saxon  origin,  is  situated  nearly  in  the 
centre  of  England,  and  lies  on  one  side  of  the  castle,  to  which  it  is 
a  mere  dependency.  It  is  placed  on  a  rising  hill  or  knoll,  the  castle 
occupying  the  highest  part,  though  mostly  concealed  from  the  town 
by  thick  plantations.  Around  the  other  sides  of  the  castle  flows 
the  Avon,  a  lovely  stream,  whose  poetical  fame  has  not  belied  its 
native  charms ;  and  beyond  it  stretch  away  the  broad  lands  which 
belong  to  the  castle. 

The  finest  approach  for  the  stranger  is  from  the  pretty  town  of 
Leamington,  about  two  miles  east  of  Warwick.  At  a  turn,  a  few 
hundred  rods  distant  from  the  castle,  the  road  crosses  the  Avon  by 


WARWICK  CASTLE  '.    KENILWORTH     STRATFORD-ON-AVON.  477 


a  wide  bridge  with  a  mossy  stone  balustrade,  and  here,  looking 
upward, 

"  Bosomed  high  in  tufted  trees, 
Towers  and  battlements  he  sees." 

The  banks  of  the  stream  are  finely  fringed  with  foliage;  beyond 
them  are  larger  trees ;  upon  the  rising  ground  in  the  rear  grow  lofty 
and  venerable  chestnuts,  oaks,  and  elms ;  and  over  this  superb  fore- 
ground, rises  up,  grand  and  colossal,  the  huge  pile  of  gray  stone, 
softened  by  the  effects  of  time,  and  the  rich  masses  of  climbers  that 
hang  like  floating  drapery  about  it.  For  a  few  moments  you  lose 
sight  of  it,  and  the  carriage  suddenly  stops  before  a  high  embattled 
wall,  where  the  porter  answers  the  knock  by  slowly  unfolding  the 
massive  iron  gates  of  the  portal.  Driving  through  this  gateway  you 
wind  through  a  deep  cut  in  the  solid  rock,  almost  hidden  by  the 
masses  of  ivy  that  hang  along  its  sides,  and  in  a  few  moments  find 
yourself  directly  before  the  entrance  front  of  the  castle.  Whoever 
designed  this  front,  made  up  as  it  is  of  lofty  towers  and  irregular 
wall,  must  have  been  a  poet  as  well  as  architect,  for  its  composition 
and  details  struck  me  as  having  the  proportions  and  congruity  of  a 
fine  scene  in  nature,  which  we  feel  is  not  to  be  measured  and  defined 
by  the  ordinary  rules  of  art.  And  as  it  rose  up  before  me,  hoary 
and  venerable,  yet  solid  and  complete,  I  could  have  believed  that  it 
was  rather  a  magnificent  effort  of  nature  than  any  work  of  mere 
tools  and  masonry. 

In  the  central  tower  opened  another  iron  gate,  and  driving 
through  a  deep  stone  archway,  I  found  myself  in  the  midst  of  a 
large  open  space  of  nearly  a  couple  of  acres,  carpeted  with  the 
finest  turf,  dotted  with  groups  of  aged  trees  and  shrubs,  and  sur- 
rounded on  all  sides  by  the  castle  walls.  This  is  the  inner  court- 
yard of  the  castle.  Around  it,  forming  four  sides,  are  grouped  in 
the  most  picturesque  and  majestic  manner,  the  varied  forms  and 
outlines  of  the  vast  pile,  partly  hidden  by  the  rich  drapery  of  ivy 
and  old  mossy  trees.  On  the  most  sheltered  side  of  the  circular 
walk  which  surrounds  this  court-yard,  among  many  fine  evergreens, 
I  noticed  two  giant  Arbutuses  (a  shrub  which  I  have  vainly  attempt- 
ed to  acclimatize  in  the  northern  States,)  more  than  thirty  feet  high, 


478 


LETTERS  FROM  ENGLAND. 


•with,  trunks  a  couple  of  feet  in  diameter,  the  growth  of  more  than 
200  years. 

On  the  south  side  of  this  court  lies  the  principal  mass  of  the 
castle,  affording  an  unbroken  suite  of  rooms  333  feet  long.  At  the 
northeast,  Csesar's  tower,  built  in  Saxon  times, — the  oldest  part  of 
the  whole  edifice,  "whose  exact  date  is  unknown — wbich  rises  dark, 
gloomy  and  venerable,  above  all  the  rest ;  -while  at  the  southeast 
stands  the  tower  built  by  the  great  Warwick — broader  and  more 
massive,  and  partly  hidden  by  huge  chestnuts.  The  other  sides  are 
not  inhabited,  but  still  remain  as  originally  built, — a  vast  mass  of 
walls,  with  embattled  parapets  broken  by  towers  with  loopholes  and 
positions  for  defence — but  with  their  sternness  and  severity  broken 
by  the  tender  drapery  of  vines  and  shrubs,  and  the  luxuriant  beauty 
of  the  richest  verdure. 

In  the  centre  of  the  south  side  of  this  noble  court-yard,  you 
enter  the  castle  by  a  few  steps.  Passing  through  the  entrance  hall, 
you  reach  the  great  hall,  vast,  baronial  and  magnificent — the  floor 
paved  with  marble — and  the  roof  carved  in  oak.  Along  the  sides, 
which  are  panelled  in  dark  cedar,  are  hung  the  armor  and  the 
weapons  of  every  age  since  the  first  erection  of  the  castle.  I  was 
shown  the  leather  shirt,  with  its  blood-stains  blackened  by  time, 
worn  by  an  ancestor  of  the  present  earl,  who  was  slain  at  the  battle 
of  Litchfield,  and  many  other  curious  and  powerful  weapons  used 
by  the  great  warriors  of  the  family  through  a  course  of  centuries. 

On  either  side  of  this  hall,  to  the  right  and  left,  in  a  straight 
line,  extend  the  continuous  suite  of  apartments.  The  first  on  the 
right  is  the  ante-drawing-room,  the  walls  crimson  and  gold ;  next, 
the  cedar  drawing-room — the  walls  richly  wainscoted  with  wood  of 
the  cedar  of  Lebanon  ;  third,  the  great  drawTing-room,  finely  propor- 
tioned and  quite  perfect  in  tone — its  walls  delicate  apple-green,  re- 
lieved by  a  little  pure  white,  and  enriched  with  gilding ;  next, 
Queen  Anne's  state  bedroom,  with  a  superb  state  bed  presented  to 
the  then  Earl  of  "Warwick,  by  that  queen,  being  antique,  with  tapes- 
try, and  decorated  with  a  fine  full-length  picture  of  Queen  Anne ; 
and  beyond  this  a  cabinet  filled  with  the  choicest  specimens  of  an- 
cient Venetian  art  and  workmanship.  Behind  the  hall  is  the  chapel, 
and  on  the  left  the  suite  is  continued  in  the  same  manner  as  on  the 


WARWICK  CASTLE  t   KENILWORTH      STRATFORD-ON-AVON.  479 

right.  Of  course  a  good  deal  of  the  furniture  has  been  removed 
from  time  to  time,  and  large  portions  of  the  interior  have  been  re- 
stored by  the  present  earl.  But  this  has  been  done  with  such  admi- 
rable taste  that  there  is  nothing  which  disturbs  the  unity  of  the  whole. 
The  furniture  is  all  of  dark  wood,  old  cabinets  richly  inlaid  with 
brass,  old  carved  oaken  couches,  or  those  rich  mosaic  tables  which 
were  brought  to  England  in  the  palmy  days  of  the  Italian  states. 
Every  thing  looks  old,  genuine  and  original.  The  apartments  were 
hung  with  very  choice  pictures  by  Van  Dyck,  Titian  and  Rubens — 
among  which  I  noticed  a  magnificent  head  of  Cromwell,  and 
another  of  Queen  Mary,  that  riveted  my  attention — the  former  by 
its  expression  of  the  powerful  self-centred  soul,  and  the  latter  by 
the  crushed  and  broken-hearted  pensiveness  of  the  countenance — 
for  it  was  Mary  at  40,  just  before  her  death — still  beautiful  and 
noble,  but  with  the  marks  in  her  features  of  that  suffering  which 
alone  reveals  to  us  the  depth  of  the  soul. 

Not  to  weary  you  with  the  interior  of  what  is  only  the  first  floor 
of  the  castle,  let  me  take  you  to  one  of  the  range  of  large,  deep, 
sunny  windows  which  lights  the  whole  of  this  suite  of  apartments 
on  their  southern  side.  Each  window  is  arched  overhead  and  wain- 
scoted on  the  side,  and  as  the  walls  of  the  castle  are  10  to  1 2  feet  thick, 
and  each  window  above  8  feet  wide,  it  forms  almost  a  little  room 
or  closet  by  itself.  And  from  these  windows  how  beautiful  the  land- 
scape !  Although  we  entered  these  apartments  by  only  a  few  steps 
from  the  level  of  the  court-yard,  yet  on  looking  from  these  windows 
I  found  myself  more  than  60  feet  above  the  Avon,  which  almost 
washes  the  base  of  the  castle  walls  on  this  side,  winding  about  in 
the  most  graceful  curve,  and  losing  itself  in  the  distance  among 
groups  of  aged  elms.  On  this  side  of  the  castle,  beyond  the  Avon, 
stretches  away  the  park  of  about  a  thousand  acres.  As  far  as  the 
eye  reaches  it  as  a  beautiful  English  landscape,  of  fresh  turf  and  fine 
groups  of  trees — and  beyond  it,  for  several  miles,  lie  the  rich  farm 
lands  of  the  Warwick  estate.  There  are  few  pictures  more  lovely 
than  such  a  rural  scene,  and  perhaps  its  quietness  and  serenity  were 
enhanced  by  contrast  with  the  sombre  grandeur  of  the  feudal  court- 
yard where  I  first  entered. 

Passing  through  a  gate  in  the  castle  wall,  I  entered  the  pleasure 


480  LETTERS  FROM  ENGLAND. 

grounds,  and  saw  in  the  orangery  or  green-house,  the  celebrated 
"Warwick  vase — the  giant  among  vases.  It  is  a  magnificent  mass 
of  marble,  weighing  8  tons,  of  beautiful  proportions,  of  which  re- 
duced copies  are  now  familiar  to  us  all  over  the  world.  It  was 
brought  from  the  temple  of  Vesta,  and  is  larger  than  I  had  been  led 
to  believe,  holding  nearly  two  hogsheads.  It  is  also  rather  more 
globular  in  form,  and  more  delicate  in  detail  than  one  would  sup- 
pose from  the  copies. 

In  the  pleasure  grounds  my  admiration  was  riveted  by  the 
u  cedar  walk  " — a  fine  avenue  of  cedars  of  Lebanon — that  noblest  of 
evergreens — some  sixty  feet  high,  a  tree  which  in  its  stately  sym- 
metry and  great  longevity,  seemed  a  worthy  companion  of  this 
princely  castle.  But  even  the  cedar  of  Lebanon  is  too  short-lived, 
for  the  two  oldest  trees  which  stand  almost  close  to  the  southern 
walls  of  the  castle,  and  which  are  computed  to  be  about  five  hun- 
dred years  old — gigantic  and  venerable  in  appearance — have  lately 
lost  several  of  their  finest  branches,  and  are  evidently  fast  going  to 
decay.  It  was  striking  to  me  to  see,  on  the  other  hand,  how  much 
the  hoary  aspect  of  the  outer  walls  of  the  castle  were  heightened 
by  the  various  beautiful  vines  and  climbers  intermingled  with  hare- 
bells, daisies  and  the  like,  which  had  sprung  up  of  themselves  on 
the  crevices  of  the  mighty  walls  that  overhang  the  Avon,  and,  sus- 
tained by  the  moisture  of  its  perennial  waters,  were  allowed  to  grow 
and  flower  without  molestation,  though  every  thing  else  that  hastens 
the  decay  of  the  building  is  jealously  guarded  against. 

If  any  thing  more  were  wanting  to  heighten  the  romantic  interest 
of  this  place,  it  would  be  found  in  the  relics  which  are  kept,  partly 
in  the  castle,  and  partly  in  the  apartments  at  the  outer  portal,  of  the 
famous  Guy,  Earl  of  Warwick,  who  lived  in  Saxon  times,  and  whose 
history  and  exploits  heretofore  always  seemed  as  fabulous  to  me  as 
those  of  Blue-Beard  himself.  Still,  here  is  his  sword,  an  enormous 
weapon  six  feet  long,  which  it  requires  both  hands  to  lift-,  his  breast- 
plate weighing  fifty-two  pounds,  and  his  helmet  seven  pounds.  The 
size  of  these  (and  their  genuineness  is  beyond  dispute.)  shows  that 
he  must  have  been  a  man  whose  gigantic  stature  almost  warrants  the 
belief  in  the  miracles  of  valor  which  he  performed  in  battle — as  an 
enormous  iron  "  porridge  pot"  of  singular  clumsy  antique  form,  which 


WARWICK  CASTLE  :    KENILWORTH  :    STRATFORD-ON-AVON.  481 

holds  102  gallons,  does  any  amount  of  credulity  as  to  the  digestive 
powers  necessary  to  sustain  the  Colossus  who  slew  all  the  dragons 
of  his  day. 

While  I  was  at  Warwick,  I  ascended  on  a  fine  moonlight  evening, 
the  top  of  the  highest  tower,  commanding  the  whole  panorama  of 
feudal  castle,  tributary  town,  and  lovely  landscape.  It  would  bo 
vain  to  attempt  to  describe  the  powerful  emotions  that  such  a  scene 
and  its  many  associations,  under  such  circumstances,  awakened 
within  me ;  but  I  turned  my  face  at  last,  westward,  toward  my  native 
land,  and  with  uplifted  eyes  thanked  the  good  God,  that,  though  to 
England,  the  country  of  my  ancestors,  it  had  been  given  to  show 
the  growth  of  man  in  his  highest  development  of  class  or  noble,  to 
America  has  been  reserved  the  greater  blessing  of  solving  for  the 
world  the  true  problem  of  all  humanity — that  of  the  abolition  of  ali 
castes,  and  the  recognition  of  the  divine  rights  of  every  human 
soul. 

This  neighborhood  is  equally  beautiful  to  the  eye  of  the  pictu- 
resque or  the  agricultural  tourist.  I  was  shown  farms  on  the  War- 
wick estate  which  are  let  out  to  tenants  at  over  £2  per  acre — and 
everywhere  the  richness  of  the  grain-fields  gave  evidence  both  of 
high  cultivation  and  excellent  soil.  The  chief  difference,  after  all, 
between  an  English  rural  landscape  and  one  in  the  older  and  better 
cultivated  parts  of  the  United  States,  is  almost  wholly  in  the  univer- 
sality of  verdant  hedges,  and  the  total  absence  of  all  other  fences. 
The  hedges  (for  the  most  part  of  hawthorn)  divide  all  the  farm- 
fields,  and  line  all  the  roadsides — and  even  the  borders  of  the  rail- 
ways, in  all  parts  of  the  country.  I  was  quite  satisfied  with  the 
truth  of  this  conjecture,  when  I  came  accidentally,  in  my  drive  yes- 
terday, upon  a  little  spot  of  a  few  rods — where  the  hedges  had  been 
destroyed,  and  a  temporary  post  and  rail  fence,  like  those  at  home, 
put  in  their  place.  The  whole  thing  was  lowered  at  once  to  the 
harshness  and  rickety  aspect  of  a  farm  at  home.  The  majority  of 
the  farm  hedges  are  only  trimmed  once  a  year — in  winter — and 
therefore  have,  perhaps,  a  more  natural  and  picturesque  look  than 
the  more  carefully  trimmed  hedges  of  the  gardens.  Hence,  for  a 
farm  hedge,  a  plant  should  be  chosen  that  will  grow  thick  of  itself 
with  only  this  single  annual  clipping,  and  which  will  adapt  itself  to 
31 


482 


LETTERS  FROM  ENGLAND. 


all  soils.  I  am,  therefore,  confirmed  in  my  belief,  that  the  buck- 
thorn is  the  farmer's  hedge  plant  for  America,  and  I  am  also  satis- 
fied that  it  will  make  a  better  and  far  more  durable  hedge  than  the 
hawthorn  does,  even  here. 

Though  England  is  beautifully  wooded,  yet  the  great  preponder- 
ance of  the  English  elm — a  tree  wanting  in  grace,  and  only  grand 
when  very  old,  renders  an  English  roadside  landscape  in  this 
respect,  one  of  less  sylvan  beauty  than  our  finest  scenery  of  like 
character  at  home.  The  American  elm,  with  its  fine  drooping 
branches,  is  rarely  or  never  seen  here,  and  there  is  none  of  that 
variety  of  foliage  which  we  have  in  the  United  States.  For  this 
reason  (leaving  out  of  sight  rail  fences),  I  do  not  think  even  the 
drives  through  Warwickshire  so  full  of  rural  beauty  as  those  in  the 
valley  of  the  Connecticut — which  they  most  resemble.  In  June 
our  meadows  there  are  as  verdant,  and  our  trees  incomparably  more 
varied  and  beautiful.  On  the  other  hand,  you  must  remember  that 
here,  wealth  and  long  civilization  have  so  refined  and  perfected  the 
details,  that  in  this  respect  there  is  no  comparison — nothing  in  short 
to  be  done  but  to  admire  and  enjoy.  For  instance,  for  a  circuit  of 
eight  or  ten  miles  or  more  here,  between  Leamington  and  Warwick 
and  Stratford-on-Avon,  the  roads,  which  are  admirable,  are  regularly 
sprinkled  every  dry  day  in  summer,  while  along  the  railroads  the 
sides  are  cultivated  with  grass,  or  farm  crops  or  flowers,  almost  to 
the  very  rails. 

The  ruins  of  Kenilworth,  only  five  miles  from  Warwick,  have 
been  so  often  visited  and  described  that  they  are  almost  familiar  to 
you.  Though  built  long  after  Warwick  castle,  this  vast  palace, 
which  covered  (including  the  garden  walls)  six  or  seven  acres,  is 
entirely  in  ruins — like  most  of  the  very  old  castles  in  England.  The 
magnificent  suites  of  apartments  where  the  celebrated  Earl  of  Lei- 
cester, the  favorite  of  Elizabeth,  entertained  his  sovereign  with  such 
regal  magnificence,  are  roofless  and  desolate — only  here  and  there  a 
fragment  of  a  stately  window  or  a  splendid  hall,  attesting  the  beauty 
of  the  noble  architecture.  Over  such  of  the  walls  and  towers  as  are 
yet  standing,  grows,  however,  the  most  gigantic  trees  of  ivy — abso- 
lutely trees — with  trunks  more  than  two  feet  in  diameter,  and  rich 
masses  of  foliage,  that  covered  the  hoary  and  crumbling  walls  with 


WARWICK  CASTLE  :    KENILWORTH  :    STRATFORD-ON-AVON.  483 

a  drapery  so  thick  that  I  could  not  fathom  it  with  an  arm's  length. 
When  the  ivy  gets  to  be  a  couple  of  hundred  years  old,  it  loses 
something  of  its  vine-like  character,  and  more  resembles  a  gigantic 
laurel  tree,  growing  against  and  partly  hiding  the  venerable  walls. 

In  the  ancient  pleasure-grounds  of  Kenilworth — those  very 
pleasure-grounds  whose  alleys,  doubtless  Elizabeth  and  Leicester  had 
trodden  together,  I  saw  remaining  the  most  beautiful  hedges  of  old, 
gold  and  silver  holly — almost  (to  one  fond  of  gardening)  of  them- 
selves worth  coming  across  the  Atlantic  to  see — so  rich  were  they 
in  their  variegated  glossy  foliage,  and  so  large  and  massive  in  their 
growth.  As  these  ruins  are  open  to  the  public,  and  are  visited  by 
thousands,  the  keepers  find  it  to  their  account  to  preserve,  as  much  as 
possible,  the  relics  of  the  old  garden  in  good  order,  though  the  pal- 
ace itself  is  past  all  renovation. 

In  this  neighborhood',  at  a  distance  of  eight  miles,  is  also  that 
spot  dearest  to  all  who  speak  the  English  language,  and  all  who  re- 
spect human  genius,  Stratford-on-Avon.  The  coachman  who  drove 
me  thither  from  Warwick  Castle,  and  whose  mind  probably  mea- 
sures greatness  by  the  size  of  the  dwelling  it  inhabits — volunteered 
the  information  to  me  on  the  way  there  that  it  was  "  a  very  smallish 
poor  sort  of  a  house,"  that  I  was  going  to  see.  As  I  stood  within 
the  walls  of  the  humble  room,  little  more  than  seven  feet  high,  and 
half  a  dozen  yards  long,  where  the  greatest  of  poets  was  born  and 
passed  so  many  days  of  his  life,  I  involuntarily  uncovered  my  head 
and  felt  how  much  more  sublime  is  the  power  of  genius,  which 
causes  this  simplest  of  birth-places  to  move  a  deeper  chord  in  the 
heart  than  all  the  pomp  and  external  circumstance  of  high  birth  or 
heroic  achievements,  based  as  they  mostly  are,  upon  the  more  selfish 
side  of  man's  nature.  It  was,  indeed,  a  very  "  smallish  "  house,  but 
it  was  large  enough  to  be  the  home  of  the  mightiest  soul  that  Eng-  v 
land's  sky  ever  covered. 

Not  far  distant  is  the  parish  church,  where  Shakspeare  lies 
buried.  An  avenue  of  lime-trees,  singularly  clipped  so  as  to  form 
an  arbor,  leads  across  the  churchyard  to  the  porch.  Under  a  large 
slab  of  coarse  stone,  lies  the  remains  of  the  great  dramatist,  bearing 
the  simple  and  terse  epitaph  composed  by  himself ;  and  above  it, 
upon  the  walls,  is  the  monumental  bust  which  is  looked  upon  as  the 


484 


LETTERS  FROM  ENGLAND. 


most  authentic  likeness.  It  has,  to  my  eye,  a  wooden  and  unmean- 
ing expression,  with  no  merit  as  a  work  of  art — and  if  there  is  any 
truth  in  physiognomy  could  not  have  been  a  likeness — for  the  upper 
lip  is  that  of  a  man  wholly  occupied  with  self-conceit.  I  prefer 
greatly,  the  portrait  in  Warwick  Castle — which  shows  a  face  paler 
and  strongly  marked  with  traces  of  thought,  and  an  eye  radiant 
with  the  fire  of  genius — but  ready  with  a  warm,  lightning  glance, 
to  read  the  souls  of  others. 

I  write  you  from  London,  where  I  have  promised  to  make  a 
visit  to  Sir  William  Hooker,  who  is  the  director  of  the  Royal  Bo- 
tanic Garden  at  Kew,  and  have  accepted  an  invitation  from  the 
Duke  of  Northumberland  to  see  the  fine  trees  at  Sion  House. 


H. 


KEW-GARDENS:  NEW  HOUSES  OF  PARLIAMENT:  A 
NOBLEMAN'S  SEAT. 

August,  1850. 

MY  DEAR  SIR  : — I  intended  to  say  something  to  you  in  this 
letter  of  the  enormous  parks  of  London — absolute  woods  and 
prairies,  in  the  midst  of  a  vast  and  populous  city ;  but  the  subject 
is  one  that  demands  more  space  than  I  have  at  my  disposal  to-day, 
and  I  shall  therefore  reserve  it  for  the  future.  I  will  merely  say, 
en  passant,  that  every  American  who  visits  London,  whether  for  the 
first  or  the  fiftieth  time,  feels  mortified  that  no  city  in  the  United 
States  has  a  public  park — here  so  justly  considered  both  the  highest 
luxury  and  necessity  in  a  great  city.  What  are  called  parks  in 
New- York,  are  not  even  apologies  for  the  thing;  they  are  only 
squares,  or  paddocks.  In  the  parks  of  London,  you  may  imagine 
yourself  in  the  depths  of  the  country,  with,  apparently,  its  bound- 
less space  on  all  sides  ;  its  green  turf,  fresh  air,  and,  at  certain  times 
of  the  day,  almost  its  solitude  and  repose.  And  at  other  times, 
they  are  the  healthful  breathing  zone  of  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
citizens ! 

The  National  Garden  at  Kew. — I  have  just  come  from  a 
visit  to  Sir  William  Hooker's,  at  Kew  Park.  He  is  the  director 
of  the  Royal  Gardens  at  Kew, — a  short  distance  from  his  house, — 
where  we  spent  almost  the  entire  day  together,  exploring  in  detail 
the  many  intersting  features  of  this  place,  now  admitted  to  be  the 
finest  public  botanic  garden  in  Europe. 

It  is  only  within  a  few  years  that  Kew  Gardens  have  been  given 


486 


LETTERS  FROM  ENGLAND. 


up  to  the  public  ;  and  it  is  wholly  owing  to  the  spirited  administra- 
tion of  Sir  William  Hooker — so  well  known  in  both  hemispheres 
for  his  botanical  science — that  it  has  lately  reached  so  high  a  rack 
among  botanical  collections.  Originally,  the  place  is  interesting,  as 
having  been  the  favorite  suburban  residence  of  various  branches  of 
the  royal  family.  George  III.  lived  here ;  and  here  Queen  Char- 
lotte died.  The  botanical  taste  of  the  latter  is  well  known,  and 
has  been  commemorated  in  that  striking  and  beautiful  plant,  the 
Strelitzia,  named  in  her  honor*  by  Sir  Joseph  Banks.  For  a 
long  time  the  garden  was  the  receptacle  of  all  the  rare  plants  col- 
lected by  English  travellers — Capt.  Cook,  Sir  Joseph  Banks,  Cun- 
ningham, and  others.  What  was  formerly  of  little  value  has,  how- 
ever, lately  become  a  matter  of  national  pride  ;  and  this  is  owing 
to  the  fact,  that  the  present  queen  has  wholly  given  Kew  up  to  the 
public,  even  adding  a  considerable  sum  annually  from  her  private 
purse  towards  maintaining  it.  The  old  "  Kew  Palace,"  which 
stands  in  the  grounds,  is  a  small,  simple,  brick  mansion,  without  tho 
least  pretension  to  state,  and  shows  very  conclusively  that  those  of 
the  Hanover  family  who  lived  here  did  it  from  real  attachment  to 
the  place — like  Queen  Charlotte,  from  love  of  botany  ;  as  there  is 
nothing  about  it  to  please  the  tastes  of  an  ambitious  mind. 

As  Kew  has  been  already  described  by  one  of  the  correspond- 
ents of  this  journal,  I  shall  not  go  into  those  details  which  might 
otherwise  be  looked  for.  I  shall  rather  prefer  to  give  you  a  com- 
prehensive idea  of  the  attractions  of  the  place,  which,  though  about 
eight  miles  from  London,  was  visited  last  year  by  one  hundred  and 
thirty-seven  thousand  persons.  The  only  requisite  for  admission  is 
to  be  decently  dressed. 

When  you  hear  of  a  garden,  in  America,  you  fancy  some  little 
place,  filled  with  borders  and  beds  of  shrubs  and  flowers,  and  laid 
out  with  walks  in  various  styles.  Dispossess  your  mind  at  once, 
however,  of  any  such  notions  as  applied  to  Kew.  Fancy,  on  the 
other  hand,  a  surface  of  about  two  hundred  acres ;  about  sixty  of 
which  is  the  botanic  garden  proper,  and  the  rest  open  park  or  plea- 
sure-grounds.    The  groundwork  of  the  whole  is  turf;    that  is, 

*  She  was  Princess  of  tho  house  of  Mecklenberg  Strelitz. 


KEW  GARDENS. 


48.7 


smoothly-mown  lawn  in  the  sixty  acres  of  botanic  garden,  and  park- 
like lawn,  occasionally  mown,  in  the  remainder.  Over  this,  is  pic- 
turesquely disposed  a  large  growth  of  fine  trees — in  the  botanic 
garden,  of  all  manner  of  rare  species,  every  exotic  that  will  thrive 
in  England — growing  to  their  natural  size  without  being  in  the  least 
crowded — tall  pines,  grand  old  Cedars  of  Lebanon,  and  all  soils  of 
rare  deciduous  trees.  Between  the  avenues  and  groups  are  large  open 
glades  of  smooth  lawn,  in  which  are  distributed  hot-houses,  orna- 
mental cottages,  a  large  lake  of  water,  parterres  of  brilliant  flowers 
for  show,  and  a  botanical  arrangement  of  plants,  shrubs,  and  trees 
for  scientific  study. 

In  the  centre  of  a  wide  glade  of  turf  rises  up  the  new  palm- 
house,  built  in  1848.  It  is  a  palace  of  glass — 362  feet  in  length, 
and  66  feet  high — and  fairy-like  and  elegant  in  its  proportions, 
though  of  great  strength ;  for  the  whole,  framework  and  sashes,  is 
of  cast  iron,  glazed  with  45,000  feet  of  glass.  You  open  the  door, 
and,  but  for  the  glass  roof  that  you  see  instead  of  sky  above  your 
head,  you  might  believe  yourself  in  the  West  Indies.  Lofty  palm 
trees,  thirty  or  forty  feet  high,  are  growing,  rooted  in  the  deep  soil 
beneath  your  feet,  with  the  same  vigor  and  luxuriance  as  in  the. 
West  Indies.  Huge  clusters  of  golden  bananas  hang  across  the 
walks,  and  cocoa-nut  trees,  forty-two  feet  high,  wave  their  tufts  of 
leaves  over  your  head.  The  foliage  of  the  cinnamon  and  camphor 
scents  the  atmosphere,  and  rich  air-plants  of  South  America  dazzle 
the  eye  with  their  strange  and  fanciful  blossoms.  Most  beautiful 
of  all  are  the  tree  ferns,  with  trunks  eight  or  ten  inches  in  diameter, 
and  lofty  heads,  crowned  with  plume-like  tufts  of  the  most  delicate 
and  graceful  of  all  foliage.  From  the  light  iron  gallery,  which  runs 
round  the  inside  of  this  tropical  forest-conservatoiy,  you  look  down 
on  the  richest  assemblage  of  vegetable  forms  that  can  be  conceived  ; 
while  over  your  head  clamber,  under  the  iron  rafters,  in  charming 
luxuriance,  the  richest  passion  flowers  and  other  vines  of  the  East 
Indian  islands. 

If  you  are  interested  in  exotic  botany,  you  may  leave  this  palm 
house,  and  pass  the  entire  day  in  only  a  casual  inspection  of  the 
treasures  of  other  climates,  collected  here  from  all  parts  of  the 
world.    Green-houses,  the  stoves^  the  orchidaceous  house,  the  Aus- 


488 


LETTERS  FROM  ENGLAND. 


tralian  house,  the  New-Zealand  house,  and  a  dozen  other  glasa 
structures,  contain  all  the  riches  of  the  vegetable  kingdom  -which  -will 
not  bear  the  open  air, — and  each  in  the  highest  state  of  cultivation. 
Giant  cactuses  from  Mexico,  fourteen  feet  high,  and  estimated  to  be 
four  hundred  years  old,  and  rock  gardens  under  glass,  filled  with  all 
the  ferns  and  epiphytes  of  South  America,  detain  and  almost  satiate 
the  eye  with  their  wonderful  variety,  and  grotesqueness  of  forms 
and  colore. 

In  the  open  grounds  are  many  noble  specimens  of  hardy  trees, 
of  great  beauty,  which  I  must,  pass  by  without  even  naming  them. 
I  saw  here  the  old  Deodar  cedar  and  araucaria  imbricata  in  Eng- 
land, each  about  twenty-five  feet  high,  and  justifying  all  the  praises 
that  have  been  lavished  upon  them ;  the  former  as  the  most  grace- 
ful, and  the  latter  the  boldest  and  most  picturesque  of  all  evergreens. 
The  trunk  of  the  largest  araucaria,  or  Chili  pine,  here,  is  of  the 
thickness  of  a  man's  leg ;  and  the  tree  looks,  at  a  distance,  like  a 
gigantic  specimen  of  deep  green  coral  from  the  depths  of  the  ocean. 
I  was  glad  to  know,  from  experience,  that  those  twcr  noble  ever- 
greens are  quite  hardy  in  the  northern  States.  You  may  judge  of 
the  scale  on  which  things  are  planned  in  Kew,  when  I  mention  that 
there  is  a  wide  avenue  of  Deodars,  newly  planted  (extending  along 
one  of  the  vistas  from  the  palm-house),  2,800  feet  long.  A  steam 
engine  occupying  the  lower  part,  and  a  great  reservoir  the  upper 
part  of  a  lofty  tower,  supplies,  by  the  aid  of  concealed  pipes,  the 
whole  of  the  botanic  garden  with  water. 

I  should  not  omit  the  museum — a  department  lately  com- 
menced, and  upon  which  Sir  William  Hooker  is  expending  much 
time.  It  is  in  some  respects,  perhaps,  the  most  useful  and  valua- 
ble feature  in  the  establishment.  Here  are  collected,  in  a  dried 
state,  all  the  curious  and  valuable  vegetable  products — especially 
those  useful  in  the  arts,  medicine,  and  domestic  economy — all  the 
raw  vegetable  materials — the  fibre — the  manufactured  products,  etc. 
Here,  one  may  see  the  gutta  percha,  of  the  East  Indies,  in  all  its 
states — the  maple  sugar  of  America — the  lace-bark  of  Jamaica — 
the  teas  of  China,  and  a  thousand  other  like  useful  vegetable  pio- 
ducts,  arranged  so  as  to  show  the  stages  of  growth  and  manufac- 


NEW  HOUSES  OF  PARLIAMENT. 


489 


ture.  Collections  of  all  the  fine  woods,  and  specimens  of  interesting 
seeds,  are  also  kept  in  glass  cases  duly  labelled. 

Now  that  I  have  perhaps  feebly  given  you  a  coup  d'ceil  of  the 
whole  (omitting  numberless  leading  features  for  want  of  time  and 
space),  you  must,  in  order  to  give  the  scene  its  highest  interest, 
imagine  the  grounds,  say  at  2  o'clock,  filled  with  a  thousand  or 
twelve  hundred  men,  women  and  children,  of  all  ages, — well  dress- 
ed, orderly  and  neat,  and  examining  all  with  interest  and  delight. 
You  see  that  they  have  access,  not  only  to  the  open  grounds,  but 
all  the  hot-houses,  full  of  rare  plants  and  flower-gardens,  gay  with 
the  most  tempting  materials  for  a  nosegay.  Yet,  not  a  plant  is 
injured — not  the  least  harm  is  done  to  the  rarest  blossom.  Sir 
William  assured  me  that  when  he  first  proposed  to  try  the  experi- 
ment of  throwing  the  whole  collection  open  to  the  public,  many 
persons  believed  it  would  prove  a  fatal  one  ;  that,  in  short,  Anglo- 
Saxons  could  not  be  trusted  to  run  at  large  in  public  gardens,  full 
of  rarities.  It  has,  however,  turned  out  quite  the  contrary,  as  he 
wisely  believed  ;  and  I  learned  with  pleasure  (for  the  fact  has  a 
bearing  at  home),  that  on  days  when  there  had  been  three  thousand 
persons  in  the  garden  at  a  time,  the  destruction  did  not  amount  to 
the  value  of  fourpence  !  On  the  other  hand,  the  benefits  are  not 
only  felt  indirectly,  in  educating,  refining,  and  elevating  the  people, 
but  directly  in  the  application  of  knowledge  to  the  arts  of  life.  I 
saw,  for  example,  artists  busy  in  the  garden,  who  had  come  miles- 
to  get  an  accurate  drawing  of  some  plant  necessary  to  their  studies ; 
and  artisans  and  manufacturers  in  the  museum,  who  had  been 
attracted  there  solely  to  investigate  some  matter  connected  with 
their  business,  in  the  productions  of  the  loom  or  the  workshop. 

In  short,  I  left  Kew  with  the  feeling,  that  a  national  garden  in 
America  might  not  only  be  a  beautiful,  but  a  most  useful  and  popu- 
lar establishment ;  one  not  too  dearly  bought,  even  at  the  expense 
bestowed  annually  upon  Kew. 

The  New  Houses  of  Parliament. — I  spent  a  whole  morn- 
ing with  Mr.  Barry,  the  distinguished  architect  of  the  new  houses 
of  Parliament,  in  examining  every  part  in  detail.  It  is  a  common 
feeling  that  the  age  for  such  gigantic  works  in  architecture  as  the 
Gothic  cathedrals,  has  gone  by.    Perhaps  this  may  be  the  case; 


490 


LETTERS  FROM  ENGLAND. 


with  religious  edifices ;  though  I  doubt  even  that,  with  such  a  great 
church  and  state  empire  as  Russia  growing  up,  and  already  casting 
a  gigantic,  though  yet  vague  shadow  over  Europe.  But  here  is  cer- 
tainly a  flat  denial  of  the  opinion,  in  this  new  legislative  hall  of 
Great  Britain — quite  the  masterpiece  of  modern  Gothic  architecture 
(excepting  perhaps  the  cathedral  of  Strasbourg).  Concisely,  this  vast 
pile,  not  yet  finished,  covers,  with  its  courts,  about  eight  acres  of 
ground.  Ten  years  have  been  consumed  in  its  erection ;  and  as 
many  more  will  probably  be  required  for  its  completion.  You  must 
remember,  too,  that  not  only  have  as  many  as  3000  men  been  em- 
ployed on  it  at  a  time,  but  all  appliances  of  steam-lifting  and  other 
machinery  are  used  besides,  which  were  not  known  in  the  days  of 
cathedrals. 

The  style  chosen  by  Mr.  Barry  is  the  perpendicular,  or  latest 
decorated  Gothic — the  exterior,  rather  veiy  nearly  akin  to  that  of 
the  beautiful  town  halls  of  the  Low  Countries,  than  that  of  any 
English  examples.  The  stone  is  a  hard  limestone  from  Yorkshire, 
of  a  drab  color ;  and  the  decorative  sculpture  is  elaborate  and  beau- 
tiful in  the  highest  degree.  What  particularly  charmed  me,  was 
the  elegance,  resulting  from  the  union  of  fine  proportions  and  select 
forms  of  modern  cultivated  tastes,  with  the  peculiarly  grand  and  ve- 
nerable character  of  Gothic  architecture.  One  is  so  accustomed  to 
see  only  strength  and  picturesqueness  in  middle-age  examples,  that 
one  almost  limits  the  pointed  style  to  this  compass.  But  Mr.  Barry 
has  conclusively  shown  that  that  elegance — which  is  always  and 
only  the  result  of  fine  proportions — is  a  beauty  of  which  Gothic  archi- 
tecture is  fully  capable.  Of  the  splendor  of  the  House  of  Lords,  and 
the  richness  and  chasteness  of  many  other  portions  of  the  building, 
you  have  already  had  many  accounts.  I  will  therefore  only  say,  at 
present,  that  so  carefully  has  the  artistic  effect  of  every  portion  of 
this  vast  building  been  studied,  that  not  a  hinge,  the  key  of  a  door, 
or  even  the  candlesticks  on  the  tables,  has  been  bought  at  the  deal- 
er's ;  but  every  detail  that  meets  the  eye  has  been  especially  design- 
ed for  the  building.  The  result,  as  you  may  suppose,  is  a  unity 
and  harmony  throughout,  which  must  be  seen  to  be  thoroughly  ap- 
preciated. 

The  profession  has  often  found  fault  with  the  employment  of  a 


A  nobleman's  beat. 


491 


florid  Gothic  architecture  for  this  building.  Certainly  it  looks  like 
throwing  away  such  delicate  details, — to  pile  them  up  amid  the 
smoke  of  London,  which  is,  indeed,  already  beginning  to  blacken  and 
deface  them.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  the  beauty  and  fitness  of  the 
style  for  the  interior  seem  to  me  unquestionable.  The  very  com- 
plexity appears  in  keeping  with  the  intricate  machinery  of  a  gov- 
ernment, that  rules  an  empire  almost  extending  over  half  the 
globe. 

Picture  of  a  Nobleman's  Seat.— I  shall  finish  this  letter  with 
a  sketch  of  a  nobleman's  seat,  where  I  am  just  now  making  a  visit ; 
and  can  therefore  give  you  the  outlines  in  a  better  light  than  travel- 
lers generally  can  do.    The  seat  is  called  Wimpole — the  property 

of  the  Earl  of  H  ,  and  is  situated  in  the  fine  agricultural  district 

of  Cambridgeshire.  It  is  not  a  "  show  place  ;"  and  though  a  resi- 
dence of  the  first  class,  especially  in  extent,  it  is  only  a  fair  speci- 
men of  what  you  may  find,  with  certain  variations,  in  many  counties 
in  England. 

The  landed  estate,  then,  amounts  to  more  than  thirty-seven  thou- 
sand acres — a  large  part  admirably  cultivated.  The  mansion,  which 
stands  in  the  midst  of  one  of  those  immense  and  beautiful  parks 
which  one  only  finds  in  England,  is  a  spacious  pile  in  the  Roman 
style,  four  hundred  and  fifty  feet  front ;  rather  plain  and  antique 
without,  but  internally  beautiful,  and  in  the  highest  degree  complete 
— both  as  regards  arrangement  and  decoration.  The  library,  for 
example,  is  sixty  feet  long,  quite  filled  with  a  rich  collection  of  books. 
The  suite  of  drawing-rooms  abounds  with  pictures  by  Van  Dyck, 
Rubens,  and  other  great  masters;  and  there  is  a  private  chapel,  in 
which  prayers  are  read  every  morning,  capable  of  containing  a 
couple  of  hundred  persons. 

In  front  of  the  house,  a  broad  level  surface  of  park  stretches  be- 
fore the  eye,  and  is  finely  taken  advantage  of  as  a  position  for  one 
of  the  noblest  avenues  of  grand  old  elms  that  I  have  seen  in  Eng- 
land ;  an  avenue  three  miles  long,  and  very  wide — not  cut  in  two 
by  a  road,*  but  carpeted  with  grass,  like  a  broad  aisle  of  verdure. 
Place  at  the  end  of  this  a  distant  hill,  and  let  the  avenue  be  the 

*  The  approach  ia  at  the  side. 


492 


LETTERS  FROM  ENGLAND. 


central  feature  to  a  wide  park,  that  rises  into  hills  and  flows  into 
graceful  swells  behind  the  house,  and  fill  it  with  herds  of  deer  and 
groups  of  fine  cattle,  and  you  have  a  general  idea  of  the  sylvan  fea- 
tures of  Wimpole. 

But  it  is  not  yet  complete.  Behind  the  house,  and  separated 
from  the  park  by  a  terrace  walk,  is  a  parterre  flower-garden,  lying 
directly  under  the  windows  of  the  drawing-rooms.  Like  all  Eng- 
lish flower-gardens,  it  is  set  in  velvet  lawn — each  bed  composed  of 
a  single  species — the  most  brilliant  and  the  most  perpetual  bloom- 
ers that  can  be  found.  Something  in  the  soil  or  culture  here  seems 
admirably  adapted  to  perfect  them,  too ;  for  nowhere  have  I  seen 
the  beds  so  closely  covered  with  foliage,  and  so  thickly  sprinkled 
with  bloom.  Some  of  them  are  made  of  two  new  varieties  of  scar- 
let geraniums,  with  variegated  leaves,  that  have  precisely  the  effect 
of  a  mottled  pattern  in  worsted  embroidery. 

Beyond  this  lie  the  pleasure-grounds, — picturesque,  winding 
walks,  leading  a  long  way,  admirably  planted  w]th  groups  and 
masses  of  the  finest  evergreens  and  deciduous  trees.  Here  is  a  weep- 
ing ash,  the  branches  of  which  fall  over  an  arbor  in  the  form  of  half 
a  globe,  fifty  feet  in  diameter ;  and  a  Portugal  laurel,  the  trunk  of 
which  measures  three  feet  in  circumference.  A  fine  American  black- 
walnut  tree  was  pointed  out  to  me  as  something  rare  in  England. 
And  the  underwood  is  made  up  of  rich  belts  and  masses  of  rhodo- 
dendrons and  English  laurels. 

I  must  beg  you  to  tell  my  lady  friends  at  home,  that  many  of 
them  would  be  quite  ashamed  were  they  in  England,  at  their  igno 
ranee  of  gardening,  and  their  want  of  interest  in  country  life.  Here, 
for  instance,  I  have  been  walking  for  several  hours  to-day  through 
these  beautiful  grounds  with  the  Countess  of  H,  who,  though  a 
most  accomplished  person  in  all  other  matters,  has  a  knowledge  of 
every  thing  relating  to  rural  life,  that  would  be  incomprehensible  to 
most  American  ladies.  Every  improvement  or  embellishment  is 
planned  under  her  special  direction.  Every  plant  and  its  culture 
are  familiar  to  her ;  and  there  is  no  shrinking  at  barn-yards — no 
affected  fear  of  cows — no  ignorance  of  the  dairy  and  poultry-yard. 
On  the  contrary,  one  is  delighted  with  the  genuine  enthusiasm  and 
knowledge  that  the  highest  class  (and  indeed  all  classes)  show  in 


a  nobleman's  seat. 


493 


the  country  life  here,  and  the  great  amount  of  health  and  happiness 
it  gives  rise  to.  The  life  of  an  English  woman  of  rank,  in  the  coun- 
try, is  not  the  drawing-room  languor  which  many  of  my  charming 
country-women  fancy  it.  Far  from  it.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  full 
of  the  most  active  duties  and  enjoyments.  But  it  must  he  admitted 
that  the  cool  and  equal  temperature  of  the  summers  here,  is  greatly 
more  inviting  to  exercise  than  our  more  sultry  atmosphere  at  home. 

We  measured,  in  the  course  of  the  morning's  ramble,  several 
English  elms,  with  which  the  park  here  abounds,  from  fifteen  to 
eighteen  feet  in  circumference.*  I  was  not  so  much  surprised  at 
this,  as  at  the  grandeur  of  the  horse  chestnuts,  which  are  truly  ma- 
jestic— many  measuring  not  less  in  girth,  with  a  much  greater 
spread  of  branches  ;  each  lower  branch  of  the  dimensions  of  an  or- 
dinary trunk,  and,  after  stretching  far  out  from  the  parent  stem, 
drooping  down  and  resting  upon  the  turf,  like  a  giant's  elbow,  and 
then  turning  up  again  in  the  most  picturesque  manner.  The  trees 
in  England  have  a  more  uniform  deep  green  tint  than  with  us,  which 
I  think  rather  lessens  the  richness  and  variety  of  the  landscape. 

The  queen  made  a  visit  here  in  1844 ;  and  as  every  thing  which 
royalty  does  in  a  monarchy  is  commemorated — and  especially  when, 
as  in  the  present  case,  the  character  of  the  sovereign  is  a  really  good 
one — I  was  shown  a  handsome  new  gate  at  the  side  of  the  park, 
opposite  to  that  which  I  entered,  with  a  striking  lodge  in  the  Italian 
taste,  bearing  the  royal  arms,  and  called  the  "Victoria  gate." 
What  interested  me  much  more,  was  an  alms-house,  built  and  man- 
aged wholly  by  Lady  H.,  as  a  refuge  for  deserving  persons,  grown 
old  or  infirm  in  the  service  of  the  family,  and  unable,  through  ill 
health  or  incapacity,  to  take  care  of  themselves.  The  building — 
cottage-like — is  not  only  quite  an  ornamental  structure  in  the  old 
English  manner,  but  the  interior  is  planned  so  as  to  secure  the  great- 
est comfort  and  convenience  of  the  inmates.  Nothing  could  be 
more  delightful  than  the  kind  interest  felt  and  acknowledged  be- 
tween the  benevolent  originator  of  this  charity  and  those  who  were 
its  recipients.    The  eyes  of  an  infirm  old  woman,  to  whom  my  hav- 

*  But>  after  all,  not  so  noble  or  beautiful  as,  in  their  heads,  the  American 
elms  iu  the  Connecticut  valley. 


494 


LETTERS  FROM  ENGLAND. 


ing  come  from  America  was  mentioned,  and  who  had  sons  in  the 
new  world,  brightened  up  with  a  strange  joy  at  seeing  one  from  a 
land  where  her  heart  had  evidently  been  of  late  more  busy  than  at 
home.  "  It  was  a  good  country,"  she  said ;  "  her  sons  had  bought 
land,  and  were  doing  famous."  For  a  working  man  to  own  land, 
in  a  country  like  this,  where  the  farmers  are  almost  all  only  tenants 
of  the  few  great  proprietors,  is  to  their  minds  something  like  hold- 
ing a  fee-simple  to  part  of  paradise. 

The  morning  yesterday  was  spent  on  horseback  in  examining  the 
agriculture  of  the  estate.  The  rich  harvest-fields,  extending  over  the 
broad  Cambridgeshire  plains,  afford,  at  this  season,  a  fine  picture  of 
the  great  productiveness  of  England.  About  a  thousand  acres  are 
farmed  by  Lord  ZL,  and  the  rest  let  to  tenants.  I  was  glad  to  hear 
from  him  that  he  has  endeavored,  with  great  success,  to  abolish  the 
enormous  consumption  of  malt  liquor  among  laborers  of  all  classes 
here,  by  giving  them  only  a  very  small  allowance  joined  to  a  sum 
equal  to  the  largest  allowance  on  other  estates,  in  the  shape  of  an 
addition  to  their  wages.  He  confirmed  my  previous  impressions  of 
the  bad  effects  produced  by  this  monstrous  guzzling  of  beer  by  the 
working  men  of  England  ;  a  consumption  actually  astounding  to  one 
accustomed  to  the  abstinent  and  equally  hard  working  farmers  of  the 
United  States* 

Farming,  here,  is  a  vastly  more  scientific  and  carefully  studied 
occupation  than  with  us ;  and  the  attention  bestowed  upon  landed 
estates,  (many  of  which  yield  a  revenue  of  $50,000  or  $60,000  a 
year,  and  some  much  more,)  is,  as  you  may  suppose,  one  of  no  tri- 
fling moment.  Hence  the  knowledge  of  practical  agriculture,  by 
the  owners  of  many  of  these  vast  English  estates,  is  of  a  very  high 
order ;  and  I  am  glad,  from  considerable  observation,  to  say  that 
the  relations  between  owner  and  tenant  are  often  of  the  most  con- 
siderate and  liberal  kind.    No  doubt  the  present  free  trade  prices 

*  At  the  celebrated  farm  of  Mr.  W.,  in  this  county,  his  cellar  contained, 
at  the  commencement  of  harvest,  twenty-four  hogsheads  of  beer ;  barely 
enough,  as  I  was  told,  for  the  harvest  labor — about  nine  pints  per  day  to 
each  man.  There  was  nearly  a  strike  among  the  workmen  for  ten  pints ; 
indeed,  a  gallon  per  day  is  no  very  uncommon  thing  for  a  beer  drinker  ir 
England ! 


a  nobleman's  seat 


495 


c  «.  .  h\Aki  s.  hard  market  for  many  of  the  tenant  farmers  of  Eng 
lava.  Vet,  «6  tho  interests  of  the  landlord  and  tenant  run  in  parah 
lei  livw,  k  ?s  cKar  that  rents  must  be  modified  accordingly.  Upon 
this  octi.ti,  this  hacs  been  done  most  wisely  and  judiciously.  The 
good  undoifstaading  that  &dits  between  both  parties  is  therefore  very 
great ;  as  a  proof  of  which,  I  vill  mention  that  the  Earl  gives  a  din- 
ner twice  a  year,  to  which  aD  his  tenants  are  invited.  At  the  last 
festival  of  this  sort,  he  took  oo.ej.sion  to  speak  publicly  of  the  low 
prices  of  bread-stuffs,  and  the  complaint  so  frequently  made  of  the 
high  rents  at  which  farms  are  sfih  held.  To  meet  the  state  of  the 
times,  he  added,  that  he  had,  from  t?me  to  time,  altered  the  scale 
of  his  rents ;  and  had  now  resoled  to  make  a  still  further  reduction 
of  a  certain  number  of  shillings  per  acre  to  all  who  would  apply  for 
the  same  after  that  day.  He  now  a^tntioned  to  me,  that  although 
nearly  two  months  had  now  elapoed,  rot  a  single  application  had 
been  made  ;  and  this,  perhaps,  sole!/  lecaa&e  the  tenants  appreci- 
ated the  justice  and  liberality  with  which  the  estate  had  been  man- 
aged, and  knew  the  free  trade  policy,  where  this  is  the  case,  falls  as 
heavily  on  the  landlords  as  on  themselves. 

Nothing  can  well  be  more  complete,  of  Itj  kind,  than  this  highest 
kiud  of  country  life  in  England.  I  leave  out  of  the  question  now, 
of  course,  all  republican  reflections  touching  the  social  or  political 
bearing  upon  other  classes.  Taken  by  itself,  it  has  been  perfected 
here  by  the  long  enjoyment  of  hereditary  right,  united  to  high  cul- 
tivation and  great  natural  taste  for  rural  and  heme  pleasures,  till  it 
is  difficult  to  imagine  any  thing  (except,  perhaps,  a  little  more  sun- 
shine out  of  doors)  that  would  add  to  the  picture.  In  the  first 
place,  an  Englishman's  park,  on  one  of  these  great  estates,  is  a  spe- 
cies of  kingdom  by  itself — a  vast  territorial  domain,  created  solely 
for  his  own  enjoyment,  and  within  the  bounds  of  which  his  family 
and  guests  may  ride,  drive,  walk,  or  indulge  their  tastes,  without  in 
the  least  interfering  with  any  one,  or  being  interfered  with,  by  the 
presence  of  any  of  the  rest  of  the  world.  In  the  next  place,  the  cli- 
mate not  only  favors  the  production  of  the  finest  lawns  and  pleasure- 
grounds  in  the  world,  but  promotes  the  out-of-door  interest  in,  and 
enjoyment  of  them.  Next,  these  great  domestic  establishments  (sc 
immense  and  complete  that  we  have  nothing  in  America  with  which 


496 


LETTERS  FROM  ENGLAND. 


to  compare  them)  are  still  managed  (owing  to  the  exercise  of  the 
service  and  the  division  of  labor)  with  an  ease  and  simplicity  quite 
incomprehensible  to  an  American,  who  knows  from  experience  how 
difficult  it  is  to  keep  a  household  of  half  a  dozen  domestics  together, 
even  in  the  older  parts  of  the  Union.  Here,  there  are  sixty  ser- 
vants, and  I  have  been  in  houses  in  England  where  there  are  above 
a  hundred,  and  yet  all  moving  with  the  quiet  precision  of  a  chrono- 
meter. There  are  few  people  in  England,  I  think,  who  seem  in- 
clined to  say  amen,  to  the  doctrine  that 

"  Man  wants  but  little  here  below." 

I  would  however  be  quite  willing  to  subscribe  to  it,  so  far  as  re- 
gards one's  domestic  establishment  in  America,  if,  alas  !  we  could 
have  "  that  little  " — good  ! 

I  must  close  my  letter  here,  with  a  promise  to  give  you  some 
account  of  Chatsworth  in  my  next,  which  stands,  in  some  respects, 
at  the  head  of  all  English  places. 


in. 


CHATSWORTH. 

[Mr.  Downing's  remarks  upon  introducing  a  friend's  "  Impressions  of 
Chatsworth,"  in  the  Horticulturist  for  January,  1847,  will  well  precede  his 
own  letters  from  that  place.] 

WHAT  one  would  do  if  he  were  a  Duke,  and  had  half  a  million 
a  year  ?  is  a  question  which,  if  it  could  be  audibly  put  by  a 
magician  or  a  fairy,  as  in  the  bygone  days  of  wands  and  enchant- 
ments, would  set  all  the  restless  and  ambitious  directly  to  air-castle- 
building.  Visions  of  the  enjoyment  of  great  estates,  grand  palaces, 
galleries  of  pictures,  richly  stored  libraries,  stately  gardens,  and 
superb  equipages,  would  no  doubt  quickly  crowd  upon  the  flushed 
imaginations  of  many  even  of  our  soberest  readers.  Each  person 
would  give  an  unlimited  scope,  in  the  ideal  race  of  happiness,  to  his 
favorite  hobby,  which  nothing  but  the  actual  trial  would  convince 
him  that  he  could  not  ride  better  and  more  wisely  than  all  the  rest 
of  his  fellow-men. 

We  have  had  placed  in  our  hands  some  clever  and  graphic  notes 
of  a  visit  to  Chatsworth,  the  celebrated  seat  of  the  Duke  of  Devon- 
shire. This  place,  as  a  highly  artistical  country  residence,  is  admit- 
ted to  stand  alone  even  in  England,  and  therefore  in  the  world.  To 
save  our  readers  the  trouble  of  perplexing  their  own  wits  to  conjec- 
ture what  they  would  do,  if  they  were  burdened  or  blessed  with  the 
expenditure  of  the  best  ducal  revenue  in  Great  Britain,  we  beg  leave 
to  refer  them  to  the  notes  that  follow. 

We  may  give  a  personal  relish  to  the  account,  by  observing  that 
32 


498 


LETTERS  FROM  ENGLAND. 


the  Duke  of  Devonshire  is  a  bachelor  ;  that  it  is  a  principle  with 
him  to  expend  the  most  of  his  enormous  income  on  his  estate,  and 
that  gardening  is  his  passion.  He  is  the  President  of  the  London 
Horticultural  Society,  where  he  is,  among  enthusiastic  amateurs,  the 
most  enthusiastic  among  them  all.  He  sends  botanical  collectors 
to  the  most  distant  and  unexplored  countries,  in  search  of  new  plants 
at  his  own  cost.  He  travels,  with  his  head  gardener,  all  over  Eu- 
rope, to  examine  the  finest  conservatories,  and  returns  home  to  build 
one  larger  and  loftier  than  them  all.  He  goes  to  Italy,  to  study  the 
effect  of  a  ruined  aqueduct,  that  he  may  copy  it  on  a  grand  scale  in 
the  waterworks  at  his  private  country-place  ;  and  he  takes  down  a 
whole  village  near  the  borders  of  his  park,  in  order  to  improve  and 
rebuild  it  in  the  most  tasteful,  comfortable,  and  picturesque  manner. 

But  it  is  not  only  in  gardening,  that  the  Duke  of  Devonshire  dis- 
plays his  admirable  taste.  Chatsworth  is  not  less  remarkable  for  the 
treasures  of  art  collected  within  its  walls.  Its  picture  galleries,  its 
library,  its  hall  of  sculpture,  its  Egyptian  antiquities,  its  stores  of 
plate,  each  is  so  remarkable  in  its  way,  that  it  would  make  a  repu- 
tation for  any  place  of  less  note.  In  his  equipage,  though  often 
simple  enough,  the  Duke  has  an  individuality  of  his  own,  and  we 
remember  reading  a  description  by  that  excellent  judge  of  such 
matters,  Prince  Puckler  Aluskau,  of  the  Duke's  turn-out  at  Doncaster 
races — a  coach  with  six  horses  and  twelve  outriders,  which  in  point 
of  taste  and  effect,  eclipsed  all  competitors,  even  there. 

But  this  is  of  little  moment  to  our  readers,  most  of  whom, 
doubtless,  relish  more  their  Maydukes,  than  anecdotes  of  even  the 
Royal  Dukes  themselves.  But  there  is  a  certain  satisfaction,  even 
to  the  humble  cultivator  of  a  dozen  trees  or  plants,  or  a  little  plat 
of  ground,  in  feeling  that  his  dearyst  hobby — gardening  is  also  the 
favorite  resource  of  one  of  the  wealthiest  and  most  cultivated  Eng- 
lish nobles.  It  is,  perhaps,  doubtful  whether  the  former  does  not 
gather  with  a  stronger  satisfaction,  the  few  fruits  and  flowers  so 
carefully  watched  and  reared  by  his  own  hands,  than  the  latter  ex- 
periences in  beholding  the  superb  desserts  of  hot-house  growth, 
which  every  day  adorn  his  table,  but  which  he  does  not  know  indi- 
vidually and  by  heart — which  others  have  reared  for  him — thinned, 
watered,  and  shaded — watched  the  sunny  cheek  redden,  and  the 


CHATSWORTH. 


499 


bloom  deepen — without  any  of  that  strong  personal  interest  which 
glads  the  heart  of  the  possessor  of  a  small,  dearly-prized  garden.  He 
gains  by  the  possession  of  the  mighty  whole,  but  he  loses  as  much  by 
losing  the  familiar  interest  in  the  inexhaustible  little.  Such  is  the 
divine  nature  of  the  principle  of  compensation  t 


August,  1850. 

Chatsworth,  the  magnificent  seat  of  the  Duke  of  Devonshire, 
has  the  unquestionable  reputation  of  being  the  finest  private  country 
residence  in  the  world.  You  will  pardon  me,  then,  if  I  bestow  a 
few  more  words  on  it,  than  the  passing  tourist  is  accustomed  to  do. 

I  ought  to  preface  my  account  of  it  by  telling  you  that  the  pre- 
sent Duke,  now  about  sixty,  with  an  income  equal  to  what  passes  for 
a  very  large  fortune  in  America,  has  all  his  lifetime  been  remark- 
able for  his  fine  taste,  especially  in  gardening  :  and  that  this  resi- 
dence has  an  immense  advantage  over  most  other  English  places,  in 
being  set  down  in  the  midst  of  picturesque  Derbyshire,  instead  of 
an  ordinary  park  level.  In  consequence  of  the  latter  circumstance, 
the  highest  art  is  contrasted  and  heightened  by  the  fine  setting  of  a 
higher  nature. 

If  you  enter  Chatsworth,  as  most  visitors  do,  by  the  Edensor 
gate,  you  will  be  arrested  by  a  little  village — Edensor  itself ;  a 
lovely  lane,  bordered  by  cottages,  just  within  the  gate,  that  has  been 
wholly  built  by  the  present  Duke.  It  is  quite  a  study,  and  is  pre- 
cisely what  everybody  imagines  the  possibility  of  doing,  and  what 
no  one  but  a  king  or  a  subject  with  a  princely  fortune,  and  a  taste  not 
always  born  with  princes,  could  do.  In  short,  it  is  such  a  village  as 
a  poet-architect  would  design,  if  it  were  as  easy  to  make  houses  of 
solid  materials  as  it  is  to  draw  them  on  paper.  There  may  be  thirty 
or  forty  cottages  in  all,  and  every  one  most  tasteful  in  form  and  pro- 
portions, most  admirably  built,  and  set  in  its  appropriate  framework 
of  trees  and  shrubbery, — making  an  ensemble  such  as  I  saw  no- 
where else  in  England.  There  are  dwellings  in  the  Italian,  Gothic, 
Norman,  Swiss,  and  two  or  three  more  styles ;  each  as  capital  a 


500 


LETTERS  FROM  ENGLAND. 


study  as  you  will  find  in  any  of  the  architectural  works,  with  the 
advantage  which  the  reality  always  has  over  its  counterfeit. 

From  this  little  village  to  Chatsworth  House,  or  palace,  is  about 
two  miles,  through  a  park,  which  is  a  broad  valley,  say  a  couple  of 
miles  wide  by  half  a  dozen  long.  It  is  indeed  just  one  of  those 
valleys  which  our  own  Durand  loves  to  paint  in  his  ideal  landscapes, 
backed  by  wooded  hills  and  sylvan  slopes,  some  three  hundred  or 
four  hundred  feet  high,  with  a  lovely  English  river — the  Derwent — 
running  like  a  silver  cord  through  the  emerald  park,  and  grouped 
with  noble  drooping  limes,  oaks,  and  elms,  that  are  scattered  over 
its  broad  surface.  After  driving  about  a  mile,  the  palace  bursts  upon 
your  view — the  broad  valley  park  spread  out  below  and  before  it — 
the  richly  wooded  hill  rising  behind  it — the  superb  Italian  gardens 
lying  around  it — the  whole,  a  palace  in  Arcadia.  On  the  crest  of 
the  hill,  from  the  top  of  a  picturesque  tower,  floats  the  flag  wbich 
apprises  you  that  the  owner  of  all  that  you  see  on  every  side — the 
park  of  twelve  miles  circuit  (filled  with  herds  of  the  largest  and  most 
beautiful  deer  I  have  yet  seen),  valley,  hills,  and  the  little  world 
which  the  horizon  shuts  in — is  at  home  in  his  castle. 

The  palace  is  a  superb  pile,  extending  in  all  some  eight  hundred 
feet.  It  is  designed  in  the  classical  style,  and  is  built  of  the  finest 
material, — a  stone  of  a  rich  golden  brown  tint,  which  harmonizes 
well  with  the  rich  setting  of  foliage,  out  of  which  it  rises. 

Cavendish  is  the  family  name  of  the  Duke  of  Devonshire,  and 
this  estate  became  the  property  of  Sir  W.  Cavendish,  in  the  time  of 
Elizabeth.  The  main  building  was  erected  by  the  first  Duke  in  1*702, 
and  the  stately  wings,  containing  the  picture  and  sculpture  galleries, 
by  the  present  Duke.  Every  portion,  however,  is  in  the  finest  pos- 
sible order  and  preservation  ;  and  it  would  be  difficult  for  the  stran 
ger  to  point  out  which  part  of  the  palace  belongs  to  the  eighteenth, 
and  which  to  the  nineteenth  centuries. 

You  enter  the  gilded  gates  at  the  fine  portal  at  one  end  of  the 
range,  and  drive  along  a  court  some  distance,  till  you  are  set  down 
at  the  main  entrance  door  of  the  palace.  The  middle  of  the  court 
is  occupied  by  a  marble  statue  of  Orion,  seated  on  the  back  of  a 
dolphin,  about  which  the  waters  of  a  fountain  are  constantly  play- 
ing.   From  the  chaste  and  beautiful  entrance  hall  rises  a  broad 


CHATSWORTH. 


501 


flight  of  stairs,  which  leads  to  the  suite  of  state  rooms,  sculpture 
gallery,  collection  of  pictures,  etc. 

The  state  rooms — a  magnificent  suite  of  apartments,  with  win- 
dows composed  each  of  one  single  plate  of  glass,  and  commanding 
the  most  exquisite  views — are  hung  with  tapestry,  or  the  walls  are 
covered  with  stamped  leather,  enriched  with  gilding.  In  these 
rooms  are  the  matchless  carvings  in  wood,  by  Gibbons,  of  which, 
like  everybody  else  curious  in  such  matters,  I  had  heard  much,  but 
which  fairly  beggar  all  praise.  No  one  can  conceive  carving  so 
wonderfully  beautiful  and  true  as  this.  The  groups  of  dead  game 
hang  from  the  walls  with  the  death  flutter  in  the  wings  of  the  birds, 
and  a  bit  of  lace  ribbon,  which  ties  one  of  the  festoons,  is — more 
delicate  than  lace  itself.  The  finest  pictures  of  Raphael  could  not 
have  astonished  me  so  much  as  these  matchless  artistic  carvings  in 
wood. 

A  very  noble  library,  a  fine  collection  of  pictures,  and  the 
choicest  sculpture  gallery  in  England  (over  one  hundred  feet  long, 
especially  rich  in  the  works  of  Canova,  Thorwalsden,  and  Chantrey), 
a  long  corridor,  completely  lined  with  original  sketches  by  the  great 
masters,  and  a  very  richly  decorated  private  chapel,  are  among  the 
show  apartments  of  Chatsworth. 

So  much  of  the  palace  as  I  have  enumerated,  along  with  all  the 
out-of-door  treasures  of  the  domain,  is  generously  thrown  open  to 
the  public  by  the  Duke ;  and  you  may  believe  that  the  opportunity 
of  gratifying  their  curiosity  is  not  thrown  away,  when  I  tell  you 
that  upwards  of  80,000  persons  visited  Chatsworth  last  year.  Hav- 
ing heard  this  before  I  went  there,  I  fancied  the  annoyance  which 
all  this  publicity  must  give  to  the  possessor  and  his  guests.  But 
when  I  saw  the  vast  size  of  the  house,  and  how  completely  distinct 
the  rooms  of  the  guests  and  the  private  apartments  of  the  Duke  are, 
from  the  portion  seen  by  the  public,  I  became  aware  how  little 
inconvenience  the  proper  inmates  of  the  palace  suffered  by  the  relin- 
quishment of  the  show  rooms.  The  private  suite  of  drawing-rooms, 
appropriated  to  the  guests  at  Chatsworth,  is  decorated  and  furnished 
in  a  far  more  chaste  and  simple  style  than  the  state  rooms,  though 
with  the  greatest  refinement  and  elegance.  Among  these  adornings, 
I  observed  a  superb  clock,  and  some  very  large  vases  of  green  mala- 


502 


LETTERS  FROM  ENGLAND. 


chite,  presented  by  the  Emperor  of  Russia ;  Landseer's  original 
picture  of  Bolton  Abbey,  and  that  touching  story  of  Belisarius — 
old,  blind,  and  asking  alms — told  upon  canvass  by  Murillo,  so  pow- 
erfully as  to  send  a  thrill  through  the  dullest  observer. 

In  the  ground  floor,  opening  on  a  level  with  the  Italian  gardens, 
is  the  charming  suite  of  apartments,  occupied  chiefly  by  the  Duke 
when  his  guests  are  not  numerous.  Nothing  can  well  be  imagined 
more  tasteful  than  these  rooms, — a  complete  suite,  beginning  with 
a  breakfast-room,  and  ending  with  the  most  select  and  beautiful  of 
small  libraries,  and  including  cabinets  of  minerals,  gems,  pictures, 
etc.  The  whole  had  all  that  snugness  and  cosiness  which  is  so  ex- 
actly opposite  to  what  one  expects  to  find  in  a  palace,  and  which 
gave  me  the  index  to  a  mind  capable  of  seizing  and  enjoying  the 
delights  of  both  extremes  of  refined  life.  The  completeness  of 
Chatsworth  House,  as  you  will  gather  from  what  I  have  said,  is 
that  it  contains  under  one  roof  suites  of  apartments  for  living  in 
three  different  styles — that  of  the  palace,  the  great  country  house, 
and  the  cottage  ornee.  With  such  a  prodigality  of  space,  you  can 
easily  see  that  the  Duke  can  afford,  for  the  greater  part  of  the  year, 
to  throw  the  palace  proper,  i.  e.,  the  state  rooms,  open  to  the  enjoy- 
ment of  the  public. 

The  next  morning  after  my  arrival  at  Chatsworth,  was  one  of 
unusual  brilliancy.  The  air  was  soft,  but  the  sunshine  was  that  of 
our  side  of  the  Atlantic,  rather  than  the  mild  and  tempered  gray  of 
England.  After  breakfast,  and  before  making  our  exploration  of 
the  gardens  and  pleasure-grounds,  the  Duke  had  the  kindness  to 
direct  the  whole  wealth  of  fountains  and  grandes  eaux  to  be  put  in 
full  play  for  the  day, — a  spectacle  not  usually  seen ;  as  indeed  the 
Emperor  fountain  is  so  powerful  and  so  high  that  it  is  dangerous  to 
play  it,  except  when  the  atmosphere  is  calm. 

We  enter  the  Italian  gardens.  And  what  are  the  Italian  gar- 
dens ?  you  are  ready  to  inquire.  I  will  tell  you.  They  are  the 
series  of  broad  terraces,  on  two  or  three  levels,  which  surround  the 
palace,  and  which,  containing  half  a  dozen  acres  or  more  of  highly 
dressed  garden  scenery,  separate  the  pleasure-grounds  and  the  house 
from  the  more  sylvan  and  rural  park.  As  the  house  is  on  a  highei 
level  than  most  of  the  valley,  you  lean  over  the  massive  Italian 


CHATSWORTH. 


503 


balustrade  of  the  terrace  (all  of  that  rich  golden  stone),  and  catch 
fine  vistas  of  the  park  scenery  below  and  beyond  you.  Of  course, 
the  Italian  gardens  are  laid  out  in  that  symmetrical  style  which 
best  accords  with  a  grand  mass  of  architecture,  and  are  decorated 
with  fine  vases,  statues,  and  fountains.  A  pretty  effect  is  produced 
by  avenues  of  Portugal  laurels,  grown  with  single  stems  and  round 
heads,  like  the  orange-trees  that  always  border  the  walks  of  the 
gardens  of  the  continent ;  and  the  Duke  mentioned,  in  passing,  that 
the  Prince  and  Princess  Borghese,  who  had  been  guests  at  Chats- 
worth  but  a  few  days  before,  had  really  mistaken  them  for  orange- 
trees.  But  one  point  where  the  Italian  gardens  of  Chatsworth  must 
always  be  finer  than  any  in  Italy,  is  in  the  carpet  of  turf  which 
forms  their  groundwork.  The  "  velvet  turf"  of  England  is  world- 
wide in  its  reputation ;  but  no  one,  till  he  sees  it  as  it  is  here — 
short,  tufted,  elastic  to  the  tread — can  realize  that  the  phrase  is  not 
a  metaphor.  A  surface  of  real  dark  green  velvet  of  a  dozen  acres, 
would  scarcely  soothe  the  eye  more,  by  its  look  of  softness  and 
smoothness,  than  the  turf  in  the  Italian  gardens  at  Chatsworth. 

35ut  the  crowning  glory  in  Chatsworth,  is  its  fountains.  In  a 
country  where  water  is  always  scarce,  a  situation  that  affords  a  pretty 
stream,  or  a  small  artificial  lake,  is  a  rarity.  But  the  whole  of  the. 
hill,  or  mountain,  that  rises  behind  the  house  and  pleasure-grounds, 
is  full  of  springs,  and  has  been  made  a  vast  reservoir,  which  is  per- 
fectly under  command,  and  fulfils  its  purposes  of  beauty  as  if  it 
were  under  the  spell  of  some  enchanter.  If  you  will  suppose  your- 
self standing  with  me  on  the  upper  terrace  of  the  Italian  gardens 
that  morning,  behind  you  rises  up  the  palace,  stately  and  magnifi- 
cent ;  all  along  its  front  of  eight  hundred  feet,  those  gardens  extend 
— a  carpet  of  velvet,  divided  by  broad  alleys,  enriched  by  masses  of 
the  richest  flowers,  and  enlivened  by  fountains  of  various  form, 
sparkling  in  the  sunshine  like  silver.  Before  you,  also,  stretches 
part  of  these  gardens — a  part  in  which  the  principal  feature  is  a 
mirror-like  lake,  set  in  turf,  and  overhung  by  a  noble  avenue  of 
drooping  lime  trees — beyond  which  you  catch  a  vista  of  the  distant 
hills. 

Out  of  this  limpid  sheet  springs  up  a  fountain,  so  high  that,  as 
you  look  upward  and  fairly  hold  your  breath  with  astonishment 


504 


LETTERS  FROM  ENGLAND. 


you  almost  expect  it,  with  its  next  leap,  to  reach  the  sty ;  and  yet^ 
with  all  this  vast  power  and  volume,  it  is  so  light,  and  any,  and  beau- 
tiful, and  it  bursts  at  the  top,  and  falls  in  such  a  superb  storm  of 
diamonds,  that  you  will  not  be  convinced  that  it  is  not  a  produc- 
tion of  nature,  like  Niagara.  This  is  the  Emperor  Fountain — the 
highest  in  the  world ;  about  the  height,  I  should  say,  of  Trinity 
Church  spire.*  It  is  only  suffered  to  play  on:  calm  days,  as  the 
weight  of  the  falling  water,  if  blown  aside  by  a  high  wind,  would 
seriously  damage  the  pleasure-grounds. 

As  the  eye  turns  to  the  left,  the  wooded  hill,  which  forms  the 
rich  forest  back-ground  to  this  scene,  seems  to  have  run  mad  with 
cataracts.  Far  off  among  the  precipices,  near  its  top,  you  see  water- 
falls bursting  out  among  the  rocks, — now  disappearing  amid  the 
thick  foliage  of  the  wood,  and  then  reappearing  lower  down,  foam- 
ing with  velocity,  and  plunging  again  into  the  dark  woods.  To- 
wards the  base  of  the  hill  stands  a  circular  water-temple,  out  of 
which  the  water  rises.  It  gushes  out  as  if  from  the  hydrant  of  the 
water  gods,  and,  running  down  a  slope,  falls  at  the  back  of  the  gar- 
dens down  a  long  flight  of  very  broad  marble  steps,  that  lead  from 
the  water-temple  to  the  edge  of  the  pleasure-grounds,  so  as  to  give 
the  effect  of  a  waterfall  of  a  hundred  or  more  feet  high.  This 
wealth  of  water,  as  if  some  river  at  the  back  of  the  mountain  had 
broke  loose,  and,  after  wild  pranks  in  the  hills,  had  been  forced  into 
order  and  symmetry  in  the  pleasure-grounds,  gives  almost  the 
tumult  and  excitement  of  a  freshet  in  the  wilderness  to  this  most 
exquisite  combination  of  garden  and  natural  scenery. 

Leaving  the  point — where  you  take  in,  without  moving,  all  this 
magical  landscape — you  wander  through  flower  gardens,  and  amid 
pleasure-grounds,  till  you  reach  a  more  wooded  and  natural  looking 
paysage.  The  fountains,  the  carefully  polished  Italian  gardens,  are 
no  longer  in  view.  The  path  becomes  wild,  and,  after  a  turn,  you 
enter  upon  a  scene  the  very  opposite  to  all  that  I  have  been  describ- 
ing. You  take  it  for  a  rocky  wilderness.  The  rocks  are  of  vast 
size,  and  indeed  of  all  sizes ;  with  thickets  of  laurels,  rhododen- 

*  The  height  of  the  Emperor  Fountain  is  267  feet.  The  next  highest 
fountains  in  the  world,  are  one  at  Hesse  Cassel,  190  feet;  one  at  St.  Cloud, 
160  feet;  and  the  great  jet  at  Versailles,  90  feet. 


CHATSWORTH. 


505 


drons  and  azaleas  growing  among  them,  ivy  and  other  vines  climb- 
ing over  them,  and  foot-paths  winding  through  them.  From  the 
top  of  a  rocky  precipice,  some  thirty  feet  high,  dashes  down  a 
waterfall,  which  loses  itself  in  a  pretty  meandering  stream  that 
steals  away  from  the  foot  of  the  rock.  Nothing  can  well  look 
wilder  or  more  natural  than  this  spot ;  and  yet  this  spot,  the  "  rock- 
garden,"  of  six  acres,  has  all  been  created.  Every  one  of  these 
rocks  has  been  brought  here — some  of  them  from  two  or  three  miles 
away.  It  is  just  as  wild  a  scene  as  one  finds  on  the  skirts  of  some 
wooded  limestone  ridge  in  America.  Though  it  was  all  made  a  few 
years  ago,  yet  now  that  the  trees  and  shrubs  have  had  time  to  take 
forms  of  wild  luxuriance,  all  traces  of  art  are  obliterated.  The  eye 
of  the  botanist  only,  detects  that  the  masses  of  laurels  are  rare  rho- 
dodendrons, and  that  beautiful  azaleas  of  the  Alps  *  make  the  un- 
derwood to  the  forest  that  surrounds  it. 

You  wish  to  go  onward.  We  will  leave  the  rock  garden  by 
this  path,  on  the  side  opposite  to  that  which  we  entered.  No,  that, 
you  see,  is  impossible  ;  a  huge  rock,  weighing  fifty  or  sixty  tons, 
exactly  stops  up  the  path  and  lies  across  it.  Your  compan- 
ion smiles  at  your  perplexity,  and  with  a  single  touch  of  his  hand, 
the  rock  slowly  turns  on  its  centre,  and  the  path  is  unobstructed ! 
There  is  no  noise,  and  nothing  visible  to  explain  the  mystery ;  and 
when  the  rock  has  been  as  quietly  turned  back  to  its  place,  it  looks 
so  firm  and  solid  upon  its  base,  that  you  feel  almost  certain  that 
either  your  museles  or  the  rocks  themselves  obey  the  spell  of  some 
unseen  and  supernatural  wood-spirit. 

One  of  the  greatest  beauties  at  Chatsworth  lies  in  the  diversity 
of  surface — the  succession  of  hill  and  dale,  which,  especially  in  the 
pleasure-grounds,  continually  occurs.  This  variation  offers  excel- 
lent opportunities  for  the  production  of  a  succession  of  scenes,  now 
highly  ornate  and  artistic,  like  the  flower  gardens,  now  romantic 
and  picturesque,  like  the  rocky  valley.  And  as  we  continue  our 
ramble,  after  entirely  losing  sight  of  the  wild  scene  I  have  just  de- 
scribed, we  enter  upon  another  still  different, — a  wide  glade  or 

*  Azalea,  or,  rather,  Rhododendron  hirmtum  and  ferrugineum  ;  two  beau- 
tiful sorts,  perfectly  hardy. 


506 


LETTERS  FROM  ENGLAND. 


opening,  like  an  amphitheatre,  in  the  midst  of  a  fine  grove  of  trees. 
An  immense  palace  of  glass  rises  before  us.  Its  curved  roof,  spring- 
ing seventy  feet  high,  gleams  in  the  morning  sun  ;  and  you  would 
be  at  a  loss  to  conceive  for  what  purpose  this  vast  structure  was  in- 
tended, did  you  not  see  as  you  approached,  by  the  indistinct  forms  of 
the  foliage,  that  it  incloses  another  garden.  This  is  the  great  con- 
servatory, which  is  three  hundred  feet  long,  and  covers  rather  more 
than  an  acre  of  ground.  Through  its  midst  runs  a  broad  road, 
over  which  the  Duke  and  his  guests  occasionally  drive  in  a  carriage 
and  four.  All  the  riches  of  the  tropics  are  grown  here,  planted 
in  the  soil,  as  if  in  their  native  climate  ;  and  a  series  of  hot-water 
pipes  maintain,  perpetually,  the  temperature  of  Cuba  in  the  heart  of 
Derbyshire.  The  surface  is  not  entirely  level,  but  there  are  rocky 
hills  and  steep  walks  winding  over  them ;  and  lofty  as  the  roof  is, 
some  of  the  palms  of  South  America  have  already  nearly  reached 
the  glass.  From  the  branches  and  trunks  of  many  of  the  largest, 
hang  curious  air  plants,  brilliant,  and  apparently  as  little  fixed  to 
one  spot  as  summer  butterflies. 

But  I  shall  never  bring  this  letter  to  a  close,  if  I  dwell  even 
slightly  upon  any  interesting  scene  in  detail.  I  must  mention,  how- 
ever, in  passing,  the  arboretum — perhaps  a  mile  long — planted  with 
the  rarest  trees,  and  every  day  becoming  richer  and  more  interest- 
ing to  the  botanist  and  the  landscape  gardener.  The  trees  are 
neither  set  in  formal  lines,  nor  grouped  in  a  single  scene,  but  are 
scattered  along  a  picturesque  drive,  with  space  enough  for  each  to 
develope  its  natural  habit  of  growth.  Tbere  are  some  veiy  grace- 
ful Deodar  cedars  here,  and  a  great  many  araucarias.  But  the 
two  most  striking  and  superb  trees,  which  I  nowhere  else  saw  half 
so  large  and  in  such  perfection,  were  Douglass'  fir  (Abies  Doug- 
lassi),  and  the  noble  fir  (Abies  nobilis).  They  are  two  of  the  mag- 
nificent evergreens  of  California  and  Oregon,  discovered  by  Doug- 
lass, and  brought  to  England  about  eighteen  years  ago.  These  two 
specimens  are  now  about  thirty-five  feet  high,  extremely  elegant  in 
their  proportions,  as  well  as  beautiful  in  shape  and  color.  I  cannot 
describe  them,  briefly,  so  well  as  by  comparing  the  first  to  a  gi- 
gantic and  superb  balsam  fir,  with  far  larger  leaves,  a  luxuriance 
and  freedom  always  wanting  in  the  balsam,  together  with  the 


CHATSWORTH. 


507 


richest  dark  bronze-green  foliage ;  and  the  latter  to  the  finest  droop- 
ing Norway  spruce,  equally  multiplied  in  the  scale  of  luxuriance 
and  grace.  They  grow  upon  a  rocky  bank,  overhanging  a  pool  of 
clear  water,  and  look  as  if  thoroughly  at  home,  on  the  slope  of  a 
hill-side  in  Oregon. 

The  arboretum  walk  forms  a  complete  collection  of  all  the 
hardy  trees  that  will  grow  out  of  doors  at  Chatsworth,  with  space 
for  planting  every  new  species  as  it  may  be  introduced  into  Great 
Britain.  A  fine  effect  is  produced  by  grafting  the  weeping  ash 
into  the  top  of  a  common  ash  tree  with  a  tall  trunk  thirty  feet  high, 
whence  it  falls  on  all  sides  more  gracefully  and  prettily  than  when 
grafted  low  ;  a  hint  that  I  laid  up  for  easy  practice  at  home. 

A  mile  further  on,  and  you  reach  the  tower,  on  the  hill  top, 
where  the  eye  commands  the  whole  of  Chatsworth  valley, — such  a 
picture  of  palace  and  pleasure-ground,  park  and  forest  scenery  as 
can  be  found,  perhaps,  nowhere  else  in  the  circle  of  the  planet. 

After  a  long  exploration — after  exhausting  all  the  well-bred  ex- 
pressions of  enthusiasm  in  my  vocabulary,  and  imagining  that  it  was 
impossible  that  landscape  gardening,  and  embellishment,  and  park 
scenery,  and  pleasure-ground  decoration,  could  farther  go — the 
Duke  reminded  me  that  I  had  neither  seen  the  kitchen  gardens,  the 
great  peach-tree,  nor  the  famous  new  water  lily — the  Victoria  Regia  ; 
and  that  Mr.  Paxton,  his  able  chef,  would  never  forgive  a  neglect  of  so 
important  a  feature  in  a  place.  As  the  gardens  where  all  these  new 
wonders  lay,  were  quite  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  park,  we  gladly 
took  to  the  carriage  after  our  industrious  morning's  ramble. 

T  shall  not  attempt  to  describe  these  large  and  complete  fruit  and 
forcing  gardens.  But  the  peach-tree  of  Chatsworth  has  not,  to  my 
recollection,  been  described,  though  it  deserves  to  be  as  famous  as 
the  grape-vine  of  Hampton  Court.  It  is  the  more  wonderful,  be- 
cause, as  you  know,  peach-trees  do  not  grow  in  England  in  orchards 
of  five  hundred  acres,  like  those  of  the  Reybolds,  in  Delaware  ;  but 
are  only  seen  upon  walls,  or  under  glass.  Yet  I  assure  you,  our 
friend  R.'s  eyes,  accustomed  as  they  are  to  peach  blossoms  by  the 
mile,  would  have  dilated  at  the  sight  of  this  monster  tree,  occupy 
ing  a  glass  house  by  itself,  and  extending  over  a  trellis — I  should 
say  a  hundred  feet  long.    I  inquired  about  the  product  of  this  tree, 


508 


LETTERS  FROM  ENGLAND. 


and  when  the  number  was  mentioned,  I  imagined  His  Grace  de- 
tected a  slight  smile  of  incredulity  ;  for  he  begged  Mr.  Paxton  to 
copy  for  me,  and  subscribe  his  name  to,  the  accurate  statistics  of  the 
present  crop.  I  send  it  to  you  in  a  note,*  with  the  addition,  that 
the  fruit  was  of  the  variety  known  as  the  Royal  George,  very  large, 
and  finer  flavored  than  I  had  before  tasted  from  trees  grown  under 
glass.  The  whole  trellis  from  one  end  to  the  other,  was  most  ad- 
mirably clothed — not  a  vacant  place  to  be  found. 

Of  the  superb  water  lily,  lately  discovered  in  Brazil,  and  named 
Victoria  Regia,  in  honor  of  the  Queen,  you  have  already  published 
an  account.  It  has  grown  and  bloomed  here  more  perfectly  than 
elsewhere ;  though  there  are,  also,  good  specimens  at  the  Duke  of 
Northumberland's,  and  at  Kew.  The  finest  plant  here  occupies  a 
house  built  specially  for  it,  60  by  45  feet,  inclosing  a  small  pond  33 
feet  in  diameter  for  it  to  grow  in.  The  plant  is,  unquestionably, 
the  most  magnificent  aquatic  known.  The  huge  circular  leaves,  4 
to  5  feet  across,  are  like  great  umbrellas  in  size  ;  and  the  blossoms,  as 
large  as  a  man's  hat — pure  white,  tipped  with  crimson — float  upon 
the  surface  with  a  very  queenly  dignity,  as  if  ready  to  command 
admiration.  A  small  frame  or  board  was  placed  on  one  of  the 
leaves,  merely  in  order  to  divide  the  weight  equally  as  it  floated ; 
and  it  upheld  the  weight  of  a  man  readily.  Some  seeds  were  pre- 
sented to  me  of  this  beautiful  floral  amazon  before  I  left  Chatsworth ; 
but  as  it  requires  the  tank  to  be  heated  to  a  temperature  of  85°, 
and  the  water  kept  constantly  in  motion  by  a  small  wheel,  I  fear  I 
shall  not  readily  find  an  amateur  in  the  United  States  who  will  be 
inclined  to  indulge  a  taste  for  so  expensive  a  floral  fancy. 

The  kitchen  and  forcing  grounds  are  on  an  immense  scale,  and 
some  handsome  fruit  was  being  packed  to  go  as  a  present  to  the 
Queen.  The  pines  were  usually  large  and  fine  ;  and  the  Duke  re- 
marked that  Mr.  Paxton  has  reduced  the  cost  of  producing  them 
two-thirds,  since  he  has  had  charge  of  that  department, — some  ten 
or  twelve  years. 

*"  Memorandum  of  Peaches,  borne  by  the  Great  Peach  Tree  at  Ghats- 
worth,  in  1850. — Fruit  thinned  out  at  various  times  before  maturity,  V.SOl ; 
do.  left  to  ripen,  926  ;  total  crop,  8,72*7. 

Jos.  Paxton." 


CHATSWORTH. 


509 


If,  after  this  lengthy  description,  I  have  almost  wholly  failed  to 
give  you  an  idea  of  Chatsworth,  it  is  not  wholly  because  my  pen  is 
not  equal  to  the  task.  Something  must  be  allowed  for  the  difficulty 
of  presenting  to  you  any  adequate  notion  of  the  variety,  richness, 
and  completeness  of  an  estate,  where  you  may  spend  many  days 
with  new  objects  of  interest  and  beauty  constantly  before  you  ;  ob- 
jects which,  only  to  enumerate,  would  be  presenting  you  with  dry 
catalogues,  instead  of  living  pictures,  brilliant  and  varying  as  those 
of  the  kaleidoscope. 

And,  I  think  I  hear  you  say,  this  is  all  for  the  pride  and  pleasure 
of  a  single  individual !  All  this  is  done  to  minister  to  his  happiness. 
Not  entirely.  The  Duke  of  Devonshire  has  the  reputation,  very 
deservedly,  I  should  think,  of  being  second  to  no  man  in  England 
for  his  benevolence,  kind-heartedness  and  liberality.  Certainly,  I 
think  I  may  safely  say,  that  Chatsworth  shows  more  refined  taste, 
joined  to  magnificence,  both  externally  and  internally,  than  any 
place  I  have  ever  seen.  When  one  sees  how  many  persons  are  con- 
stantly employed  in  the  various  works  of  improvement  on  this  single 
estate,  and  how  cheerfully  the  whole  is  thrown  open  to  the  study 
and  enjoyment  of  thousands  and  tens  of  thousands  annually,  one 
cannot  but  concede  a  liberal  share  of  admiration  and  thanks  to  a 
nobleman  who  might  follow  the  example  of  many  others,  and  make 
his  home  his  closed  castle;  but  who  prefers,  on  the  other  hand,  to 
open,  like  a  national  picture  gallery,  this  magnificent  specimen  of 
landscape  gardening  and  architecture,  on  which  his  fine  taste  and 
ample  fortune  have  been  lavished  for  half  a  century.  One  has  only 
to  visit  Windsor  and  Buckingham  Palace  after  Chatsworth,  to  see 
the  difference  between  a  noble  and  pure  taste,  and  a  royal  want  of 
it.  The  one  may  serve  to  educate  and  reform  the  world.  The  ut- 
most that  the  other  can  do,  is  to  dazzle  and  astonish  those  who  can- 
not recognize  real  beauty  or  excellence  in  art. 


IV. 


ENGLISH  TRAVELLING:  HADDON  HALL:  MATLOCK; 
THE  DERBY  ARBORETUM:  BOTANIC  GARDEN  IN 
REGENT'S  PARK. 

August,  1850. 

DERBYSHIRE  (you  remember  you  left  me  at  Chatsworth),  is  sc 
picturesque  a  country,  that  I  drove  about  among  its  hills  and 
valleys  with  the  luxury  of  good  roads  and  the  easiest  of  private  car- 
riages. It  is,  indeed,  only  in  this  way  that  England  can  be  seen  or 
understood.  To  dash  through  such  a  country  as  this,  where  the  de- 
tails are  all  worked  up  into  such  perfect  finish,  is  like  going  through 
a  gallery  of  cabinet  pictures  at  the  speed  of  Capt.  Barclay,  or  some 
"  crack  pedestrian,"  who  performs  a  thousand  miles  in  a  thousand 
hours.  Here  is  indeed  a  hilly  country,  where  you  get  a  glimpse  of 
something  new  and  interesting  at  every  turn  :  and  yet  the  roads  are 
by  no  means  those  we  are  accustomed  to  see  in  such  a  district,  but 
smooth  and  hard  as  a  Macadam  can  make  them.  It  would,  how- 
ever, amuse  one  of  our  expert  Alleghany  stage-drivers,  who  goes 
down  a  five  mile  mountain  on  a  full  run,  to  see  an  English  coach- 
man lock  his  wheels  on  such  smooth  and  easy  grades  as  these, 
among  the  Derbyshire  hills.  A  proposal  of  such  feats  to  an  Eng- 
lish driver  as  are  performed  daily  in  the  Alleghanies,  with  the  most 
perfect  success  and  nonchalance,  would  be  received  by  him  with  the 
same  belief  in  your  sanity,  as  if  you  should  ask  him  to  oblige  you 
by  swallowing  the  cupola  of  St.  Paul's.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
perfect  neatness  of  dress  (especially  in  snowy  linen,  and  spotless 
white-top  boots),  the  obliging  manners,  and  the  careful  and  rapid 


HADDON  HALL. 


511 


driving  (on  those  level  roads)  of  a  John  Bull  who  is  bred  to  hold 
the  reins,  would  be  a  stranger  revelation  to  one  of  our  uncouth  loot- 
ing drivers,  than  an  explanation  of  the  whole  art  of  governing  a 
monarchy. 

These  Derbyshire  hills  are,  in  some  parts,  covered  with  wood, 
and  in  others  entirely  bare,  or  rather  only  covered  with  grass, — af- 
fording pasture  to  large  flocks  of  sheep.  As  I  drove  amid  long 
slopes  and  rounded  summits,  some  200  or  300  feet  high,  I  was 
struck  with  the  exquisite  purple  hue,  like  the  bloom  on  a  plum, 
with  which  some  of  the  hill-sides  were  suffused  in  the  soft  afternoon 
light.  A  little  nearer  approach  enables  one  to  solve  the  riddle  of 
the  mysterious  color.  The  whole  hill-side  was  thickly  covered 
with  purple  heather,  in  full  bloom,  which,  at  a  distance,  gave  it  the 
seeming  of  having  been  dipped  in  some  delicate  dye.  I  cannot  tell 
you  how  these  hills,  and  the  wild  wastes  and  downs  of  England, 
covered  with  the  delicate  bells  of  the  heath,  affected  me  when  I 
first  saw  them.  When  you  remember,  that  with  all  the  forest  and 
meadow  richness  of  America,  not  a  single  heath  grows  wild  from 
one  end  of  the  country  to  the  other,  and  that  we  scarcely  know  the 
plant,  except  as  a  delicate  and  cherished  green-house  exotic — a  plant 
which  every  English  poet  has  embalmed  in  his  verse,  and  which  is 
the  very  emblem  of  wild,  airy  freshness — you  may  believe  me,  when 
I  tell  you  that  a  million,  spent  in  gardens  under  glass,  could  not 
have  given  me  the  same  exquisite  delight,  which  I  experienced  in 
running  over,  plucking,  and  feasting  my  eyes  upon  these  acres  of 
wild  heather.  There  are  half  a  dozen  species,  with  different  shades 
of  color — white,  pink,  pale  and  deep  purple ;  but  the  latter  is  the 
most  beautiful,  as  well  as  the  most  common. 

Haddon  Hall. — Next  to  Chatsworth,  Haddon  Hall  is  the  most 
noted  locality  in  Derbyshire.  As  the  two  places  are  but  a  few 
miles  apart,  they  form  the  best  possible  contrast, — Chatsworth  being 
one  of  the  most  finished  specimens  of  the  luxury,  refinement,  and 
grandeur  of  modern  England,  as  Haddon  is  of  the  domestic  abodes 
and  habits  of  an  English  nobleman  two  hundred  years  ago. 

Haddon  Hall  gives,  perhaps,  the  best  idea  that  may  be  gathered 
any  where  in  this  country,  of  the  ancient  baronial  residence,  exactly 
as  it  was.         part  of  this  large  castellated  pile  (which  is  finely 


512 


LETTERS  FROM  ENGLAND. 


situated  on  the  slope  of  a  wooded  hill),  is  of  later  date  than  the 
sixteenth  century.  Its  history  is  that  of  the  Vemon  family,  who 
built  and  inhabited  it  for  more  than  three  centuries.  Sir  George 
Vemon,  the  last  male  heir,  lived  here  in  the  time  of  Elizabeth ; 
and  his  magnificent  hospitality  and  great  establishment  gave  him 
the  name  of  the  "  king  of  the  Peak." 

What  struck  me  at  H  addon  was  the  realness  and  the  rudeness 
of  those  halls  of  ancient  grandeur.  There  is  not  one  alteration  to 
suit  more  modern  tastes — not  a  single  latter-day  piece  of  furniture — 
nothing,  in  short,  that  does  not  remind  you  of  the  solidly  material 
difference  between  ancient  and  modern  times.  Vast  chimney- 
pieces,  with  huge  fire-dogs  in  them,  for  burning  wood,  large  halls, 
with  open  timber  roofs,  instead  of  ceilings,  wainscot  covered  with 
tattered  arras,  which  hung  loosely  over  secret  panelled  doors  in  the 
walls,  rude  and  massive  steps  to  the  staircases,  and  clumsy,  though 
strong  bolts  and  hasps  to  the  doors, — all  these,  with  many  rude 
utensils,  show  that  strength,  and  not  elegance,  stamped  its  charac- 
ter upon  the  domestic  life,  even  of  the  great  nobles  in  those  days. 
Here  is  a  house  which  held  accommodation  for  upwards  of  four- 
score servants,  in  all  the  luxury  of  the  time ;  and  yet,  so  great  has 
been  the  progress  of  civilization,  that  many  of  our  working  men 
would  doubtless  think  the  best  accommodation  of  those  days  but 
rough  apartments  to  live  in.  The  seats  in  the  kitchen  are  of  stone  ; 
and  there  must  have  been  cold  draughts  in  these  great  bam-like 
halls,  that  would  make  modem  effeminacy's  teeth  chatter. 

There  is  a  singular  charm  about  such  a  veritable  antique  castle 
as  this,  which  perhaps  an  American  feels  more  strongly  than  an 
Englishman.  It  gives  one  the  feeling  of  a  conversation  with  the 
spirits  of  antiquity ;  and  it  has  for  us  the  additional  piquancy, 
growing  out  of  the  fact,  that  we  come  from  a  land  where  such 
spirits  are  wholly  unrecognized  and  unknown.  To  feel  that  in  this 
rude  dining-hall  the  best  civilization  of  the  time  flourished,  and 
mighty  barons,  ladies,  and  vassals  feasted  and  revelled,  long  before 
the  first  settlement  was  made  at  Jamestown,  is  very  much  like  being 
invited  to  smoke  a  cigar  with  Sir  Walter  Raleigh,  or  go  to  the 
Globe  playhouse  with  Manager  Shakspeare. 

The  terraced  garden,  too,  is  quaint  and  "  old-timey."  The  specia' 


MATLOCK. 


513 


point  of  interest  is  "  Dorothy  Vernon's  Walk  ; "  for  it  has  both  ro- 
mance and  reality  about  it.  Dorothy  was  the  beautiful  daughter 
and  heiress  of  the  last  Vernon.  The  son  of  the  first  Duke  of  Rut- 
land fell  so  violently  in  love  with  her,  when  she  was  but  eighteen, 
that  (his  suit  not  being  favored  by  her  father)  he  lived  some  time 
in  the  woods  of  Haddon,  disguised  as  a  gamekeeper ;  and  finally 
(during  a  masked  ball),  eloped  with  the  fair  Dorothy,  heiress  of 
Haddon,  through  the  door  from  the  long  gallery,  which  leads  down 
to  this  walk. 

And  this  gives  me  the  opportunity  to  say,  that  this  marriage,  of 
course,  brought  Haddon  Hall  into  the  family  of  the  Dukes  of  Rut- 
land, who,  for  a  time,  inhabited  it  in  great  state ;  but  about  a  hun- 
dred years  ago  abandoned  it  for  their  more  modern  residence — 
Belvoir  Castle.  Haddon  Hall  is,  however,  though  uninhabited, 
wisely  prevented  from  falling  into  complete  decay  by  the  present 
Duke  of  Rutland,  and  is  open  to  the  inspection  of  visitors  at  all 
times. 

Matlock,  considered  the  most  picturesque  spot  in  Derbyshire,  is 
in  the  ordinary  route  of  travellers,  but  would,  I  think,  disappoint 
any  one  accustomed  to  the  Hudson ;  as  would,  indeed,  any  scenery 
in  England  (I  will  except  Wales)  in  point  of  picturesqueness.  The 
village  of  Matlock  Bath  is  a  watering-place,  nestled  in  a  pretty, 
quiet  dale,  surrounded  by  rocky  cliffs  some  200  or  300  feet  high. 
Excellent  walks,  charmingly  laid  out  and  well  kept,  sparry  caverns, 
petrifying  wells,  with  mineral  springs,  make  up  the  attractions  of 
this  rural  neighborhood.  The  real  beauty  of  Matlock,  to  my  eyes — 
and  it  is  the  essentially  English  feature — is  in  the  luxuriance  of  the 
vines  and  shrubbery  that  clamber  over  and  enwreath  every  object — 
natural,  artificial,  and  picturesque.  A  bare,  rocky  bank,  unless  it 
has  great  magnitude  or  grandeur  of  outline,  is  hard  and  repulsive. 
But  let  that  same  bank  be  covered  with  rich  masses  of  ivy,  and 
overhung  with  verdure  of  luxuriant  shrubs  and  trees,  and  what  was 
ugly  and  harsh  is  transformed  into  something  exceedingly  beautiful. 
In  this  respect,  both  chmate  and  culture  conspire  to  make  English 
scenery  of  this  character  very  captivating.  The  ivy  springs  up  and 
grows  readily  any  where ;  and  the  people,  with  an  instinctive  feel- 
ing for  rural  expression,  encourage  this  and  other  drapery,  wherever 
33 


514 


LETTERS  FROM  ENGLAND, 


it  is  becoming.  Strip  away  from  the  English  cottages,  that  are  so 
much  admired,  the  vines  that  cover,  and  the  shrubbery  that  em- 
bowers them,  and  they  would  look  as  bald  and  commonplace  as  the 
most  ordinary  rural  dwellings  in  America.  The  only  difference 
would  be,  that  an  English  cottage,  stripped  of  drapery,  would  show 
plain  brick  walls,  and  tile  or  thatch  roof — ours,  wooden  clap-board- 
ing and  shingles.  Architecturally,  however,  the  English  cottages — 
four-fifths  of  them — are  no  better  than  our  own ;  but  they  are  so 
affectionately  embosomed  in  foliage,  that  they  touch  the  heart  of 
the  traveller  more  than  the  designs  of  Palladio  would,  if  they  bor- 
dered the  lanes  and  road-sides. 

As  no  decoration  is  so  cheap  as  vines,  I  was  one  day  expressing 
my  regret  to  an  English  landscape-gardener,  that  the  ivy  was 
neither  a  native  of  America,  nor  would  it  thrive  in  the  northern 
States,  without  considerable  care.  "You  Americans  are  an  un- 
grateful people,"  said  he ;  "  look  at  that  vine,  clambering  over  yon- 
der building,  by  the  side  of  the  ivy.  It  is,  as  you  see,  more  luxuri- 
ant, more  rapid  in  growth,  and  a  livelier  green  than  our  ivy.  It  is 
true,  it  has  neither  the  associations  nor  the  evergreen  habit  of  the 
ivy  ;  but  we  think  it  quite  as  beautiful  for  the  purpose  of  covering 
walls  and  draping  cottages."  The  plant  he  eulogized  was  the  Vir- 
ginia Creeper  (Ampelopsis  quinquefolia),  an  old  favorite  of  mine, 
and  which  we  are  just  beginning  rightly  to  estimate  at  home  as  it 
deserves.* 

The  Derby  Arboretum. — Derby  is  an  interesting  old  town, 
and  I  passed  a  day  there  with  much  satisfaction.  What  I  particu- 
larly wished  to  see,  however,  was  the  public  garden  or  pleasure- 

*  Nothing  can  be  more  brilliant,  as  your  readers  well  know,  than  the 
Virginia  Creeper  in  the  autumn  woods  at  home,  where  it  frequently  climbs 
up  the  leading  stem  of  some  evergreen,  and  shines,  in  its  autumnal  glory, 
like  foliage  of  fire,  through  the  dark  foliage  of  a  cedar  or  a  hemlock.  It 
grows  in  almost  every  part  of  the  country,  and  will  cling  to  walls  or  wood- 
work, like  the  ivy,  without  any  artificial  aid.  We  believe  this  vine  is  less 
frequently  planted  than  it  would  be,  from  many  persons  confounding  it 
with  the  poison  sumac  vine,  which  a  little  resembles  it.  The  Virginia 
Creeper  is,  however,  perfectly  harmless,  and  may  be  easily  known  from  the 
poison  vine,  by  the  latter  bearing  only  three  leaflets  to  a  leaf,  while  the 
Virginia  Creeper  has  five  leaflets. 


THE  DERBY  ARBORETUM. 


515 


grounds,  called  the  Derby  Arboretum.  It  interested  me  in  three 
ways  :  first,  as  having  been  especially  formed  for,  and  presented  to 
the  inhabitants  of  the  town  by  their  member  of  Parliament,  Joseph 
Strutt,  Esq.,  a  wealthy  silk  manufacturer  here  ;  then,  as  containing 
a  specimen  of  most  of  the  hardy  trees  that  will  grow  in  Britain ; 
and  lastly,  as  having  been  laid  out  by  the  late  Mr.  Loudon.  f 

As  a  public  garden — the  gift  of  a  single  individual — it  is  cer- 
tainly a  most  noble  bequest.  The  area  is  about  eleven  acres,  and  is 
laid  out  so  as  to  appear  much  larger, — the  boundaries  concealed  by 
plantations,  etc.  There  are  neat  and  tasteful  entrance  lodges,  with 
public  rooms  for  the  use  of  visitors  (where  a  lunch  is  provided,  at 
the  bare  cost  of  the  provisions),  and  where  books  of  reference  are 
kept ;  so  that  any  person  who  wishes  to  pursue  the  study  of  trees, 
can,  with  the  aid  of  the  specimens  in  the  garden,  quickly  become 
familiar  with  the  whole  history  of  eveiy  known  species.  During 
five  days  in  the  week,  these  grounds  are  open  to  all  persons  without 
charge  ;  and  on  the  other  two  days,  the  admission  fee  is  sixpence 
— merely  enough  to  keep  the  place  in  good  condition. 

The  grounds  were  in  beautiful  order,  and  are  evidently  much* 
enjoyed,  not  only  by  the  good  people  of  Derby,  but  by  strangers, 
and  visitors  from  the  neighborhood.  I  met  numbers  of  young  peo- 
ple strolling  about  and  enjoying  the  promenade,  plenty  of  nurses  and 
children  gathering  health  and  strength  in  the  fresh  air,  and,  now 
and  then,  saw  an  amateur  carefully  reading  the  labels  of  the  various 
trees  and  shrubs,  and  making  notes  in  his  memorandum-book — 
doubtless,  with  a  view  to  the  improvement  of  his  own  grounds. 
Every  tree  or  plant  is  conspicuously  marked  with  a  printed  label 
(a  kind  of  brick  set  in  the  ground  at  the  foot  of  the  tree  or  shrub, 
with  the  name  under  a  piece  of  glass,  sunk  in  a  panel  upon  the  top 
of  the  brick) ;  and  this  label  contains  the  common  name  of  the  plant, 
the  botanical  name,  its  native  country,  the  year  of  its  introduction 
(if  not  a  native),  and  the  height  to  which  it  grows.  The  most  per- 
fect novice  in  trees,  can  thus,  by  walking  round  the  arboretum,  ob- 
tain in  a  short  time  a  very  considerable  knowledge  of  the  hardy 
Sylva,  while  the  arboriculturist  can  solve  many  a  knotty  point,  by 
looking  at  the  trees  and  plants  themselves,  which  no  amount  of 
study,  without  the  living  specimen,  would  settle.    Then  the  whole 


516 


LETTERS  FROM  ENGLA.ND. 


collection,  consisting  of  about  a  thousand  different  species  and  varie- 
ties, is  arranged  according  to  the  natural  system,  so  that  the  bota- 
nist may  study  classification,  as  well  as  structure  and  growth,  with 
the  whole  clearly  before  his  eyes.  As  the  great  point  is  to  show 
the  natural  character  of  the  different  trees  and  shrubs,  they  are  all 
planted  quite  separately,  and  allowed  room  to  grow  on  all  sides ; 
and  no  pruning  which  would  prevent  the  natural  development  of 
the  habits  of  the  tree  or  shrub,  is  permitted. 

The  whole  arboretum  was  laid  out  and  planted  ten  years  ago — 
in  1840 ;  so  that,  of  course,  one  can,  now,  very  well  judge  of  its 
value  and  its  effects. 

That  it  is,  and  will  be,  one  of  the  most  useful  and  instructive 
public  gardens  in  the  world,  there  can  be  no  doubt ;  for  it  certainly 
combines  the  greatest  possible  amount  of  instruction,  with  a  great 
deal  of  pleasure  for  all  classes,  and  especially  the  working  classes. 
That  it  may  appeal  largely  to  the  sympathies  of  the  latter,  even  to 
thoser-to  whom  all  trees  are  alike,  there  is  a  fine  piece  of  smooth 
lawn  (added,  I  think,  to  the  original  eleven  acres),  expressly  used  as 
a  skittle  ground, — a  favorite  English  game  with  ball  ;  at  which 
numbers  of  men  and  boys  were  playing  while  I  was  there. 

As  regards  taste,  I  do  not  hesitate  to  confess  my  disappointment. 
There  is  no  other  beauty  in  these  grounds,  than  what  grows  out  of 
the  entire  surface  being  covered  with  grass,  neatly  mown,  with 
broad  straight  walks  through  the  central  portions,  and  a  series  of 
narrower  covered  walks,  making  a  connected  circuit  of  the  whole. 
The  peculiarity  of  the  design  belongs  to  the  surface  of  the  ground. 
This  was  naturally  a  level ;  but  in  order  to  produce  the  greatest  pos- 
sible intricacy  and  variety,  in  a  limited  space,  it  was  thrown  up, 
here  and  there,  into  ridges  from  six  to  ten  feet  high.  These  ridges 
are  not  abrupt,  but  gentle ;  and  the  walks  are  led  between  them,  so 
that  even  when  there  are  no  intervening  trees  and  shrubs,  you  could 
not  easily  see  a  person  in  one  walk  from  another  one  parallel  to  it, 
though  only  twenty  or  thirty  feet  off.  If  these  ridges,  or  undula- 
tions in  the  surface,  had  been  cleverly  planted  with  groups  and 
masses  of  trees  and  shrubs,  the  effect  would  have  been  very  good ; 
but  dotted  as  they  are  with  scattered  single  trees  and  shrubs,  the  re- 
sult is  a  little  harsh,  with  neither  the  ease  of  nature  nor  the  symme- 


THE  DERBY  ARBORETUM. 


517 


try  of  art.  If  one  looks  at  the  Derby  arboretum,  therefore,  as  an 
example  of  Mr.  Loudon's  landscape-gardening,  one  would  not  get  a 
high  idea  of  his  taste.  But  I  believe  this  would  not  be  judging  him 
fairly,  as  I  think  he  intended  this  place  as  a  garden  for  instructing 
the  British  public  in  arboriculture,  even  more  than  as  a  specimen 
of  public  pleasure-grounds.  And  every  one  who  is  familiar  with 
botanical  gardens,  knows  how  ugly  they  generally  are,  from  the 
very  plain  reason,  that  instead  of  planting  only  beautiful  objects, 
they  must  necessarily  contain  a  great  mass  of  species,  very  uninter- 
esting except  to  the  scientific  student. 

I  noticed  one  tree  that  was  entirely  new  to  me,  and  which  I  am 
sure  will  be  a  valuable  acquisition  to  our  pleasure-grounds  at  home. 
It  is  the  "  hoary  Pyrus,"  from  Nepaul,  Pyrus  vestita, — a  very  strik- 
ing tree,  in  its  large  foliage,  which  is  dark  green  above,  and  hoary 
white  below.  It  is  very  vigorous  and  hardy  ;  the  specimen  about 
thirty  feet  high. 

The  Derby  arboretum,  altogether,  as  I  learned  there,  cost  above 
$50,000.  Considered  as  the  creation  and  bequest  of  a  private  citi- 
zen to  his  townsmen  (and  to  the  country  at  large),  it  is  certainly  a 
magnificent  donation.  When  one  remembers  what  a  gratification 
is  afforded  to  the  numerous  inhabitants  of  a  large  town,  for  all  time 
to  come,  by  this  arboretum,  what  a  refreshment  after  a  day's  labor 
for  those  who  have  no  garden  of  their  own,  what  an  instructive 
walk — every  year  increasing  in  extent — even  for  those  who  have, 
what  an  attraction  to  strangers,  and  what  a  source  of  pride  to  the 
citizens  to  whom  it  especially  belongs,  one  cannot  but  look  upon 
Mr.  Strutt's  gift,  as  something  done  in  the  largest  spirit  of  philan- 
thropy. Quite  as  considerable  sums  have  often  been  given  by  mer- 
chants in  my  own  country,  to  found  hospitals  and  asylums  for  the 
diseased  in  mind  and  body.  Perhaps  it  may  not  be  long  before 
some  one  of  them  will  follow  the  example  of  Mr.  Strutt,  and  form  a 
public  garden  or  park,  as  such  places  should  be  formed,  and  present 
it  to  one  of  our  large  cities  or  towns,  now  so  much  in  need  of  it. 
Would  it  not  keep  his  memory  more  lovingly  fresh  in  the  minds  of 
his  fellow-men,  and  their  descendants,  than  any  other  bequest  it  is 
possible  to  conceive  ? 

The  Botanic  Garden  in  Regent's  Park. — As  a  pendant  to 


518 


LETTERS  FROM  ENGLAND. 


this  sketch  of  the  arboretum  at  Derby,  let  me  give  you  an  outline 
of  another  garden  in  the  midst  of  the  Regent's  Park,  at  the  west  end 
of  London.  It  cannot,  perhaps,  be  strictly  called  a  public  garden ; 
it  is,  more  properly,  a  subscription  garden,  as  it  was  made,  and  is 
maintained,  by  about  sixteen  hundred  members,  who  either  pay 
twenty  guineas  at  the  outset,  or  two  guineas  a  year.  The  privileges 
they  have,  are  the  free  enjoyment  of  the  grounds,  conservatories,  etc., 
at  all  times,  and  the  admission  of  their  friends  (not  more  than  two 
per  day)  by  tickets.  As  there  is  no  other  way  of  getting  admis- 
sion (even  the  fee,  that  is  so  all-potent  in  most  cases,  does  not  pre- 
vail here),  of  course,  very  few  strangers  ever  see  this  garden — the 
best  worth  seeing,  of  its  kind,  perhaps,  in  all  Europe.  As  I  had, 
fortunately,  been  one  of  the  honorary  members  for  some  years,  I 
was  glad  to  claim  my  rights,  soon  after  my  arrival  in  London. 

The  scene,  as  you  enter  the  grounds,  is  extremely  beautiful  and 
striking,  especially  when  you  recall  (what,  without  an  effort,  you 
would  certainly  forget)  that  you  are  in  the  midst  of  a  vast  city  ;  or, 
at  the  most,  barely  on  the  borders  of  it.  Here  is  a  large  velvet 
lawn,  admirably  kept,  the  surface  gently  undulating,  and  stretching 
away  indefinitely  (to  all  appearance)  on  either  side,  losing  itself 
amid  belts  and  groups  and  masses  of  shrubs  and  trees,  with  winding 
walks  stealing  off,  here  and  there,  in  the  most  inviting  manner,  to 
the  right  and  left.  At  the  end  of  the  broad  walk,  at  the  farther 
side  of  the  great  lawn,  which  forms  the  central  feature  to  the  gar- 
den, stands  a  noble  conservatory  of  immense  size,  with  lofty  curved 
roof;  and  on  either  side  of  it  are  small  hot-houses,  full  of  all  the 
novelties  of  the  day,  and  all  the  treasures  of  the  exotic  Flora. 

There  cannot  be  a  finer  contrast,  in  point  of  tasteful  arrangement 
and  beauty  of  effect,  than  that  which  this  garden  presents  to  the 
arboretum  at  Derby.  They  were  both  formed  about  the  same  time, 
and  the  extent  is  not  greatly  different ;  the  whole  area  of  this  place 
being  only  eighteen  acres.*  Here,  the  utmost  beauty,  variety,  and 
interest  are  concentrated  within  these  moderate  limits.  As  you 
enter,  you  are  struck  by  the  breadth  and  extent  of  the  broad  velvet 

*  It  gains  greatly  by  being  in  the  midst  of  the  Regent's  Park,  with  its 
boundaries  concealed  by  thickets,  over  which  the  trees  in  the  park  make  a 
pleasingly  indefinite  background. 


THE  BOTANIC  GARDEN  IN  REGENT'S  PARK.  519 


lawn.  As  you  ramble  about  tbe  finely  planted  and  well  grown 
walks,  which  form  tbe  border  to  tbis  lawn — now  quite  concealed 
from  all  observation  in  a  thicket  of  foliage— now  emerging  upon 
some  pretty  garden  vista,  and  again  opening  upon  a  little  separate 
nook,  devoted  to  some  single  kind  of  culture,  as  groups  of  rhodo- 
dendrons, or  American  plants,  or  a  flower  garden  set  in  turf, 
or  a  rock-work  filled  witb  curious  alpines  —  you  imagine  you 
bave  been  introduced  into  some  pleasure-grounds  of  fifty  acres, 
instead  of  tbe  moderate  compass  of  less  tban  twenty.  Tbe  sur- 
face is  most  gracefully  undulating,  so  as  to  give  tbat  play  of  ligbt 
and  sbade — tbose  sunny  smiles,  so  pleasant  in  a  lawn,  and  to  pre- 
vent your  eye  from  ranging  over  too  large  a  sweep  at  one  time ; 
and  tbougb  tbis  variation  of  surface  was,  as  I  was  told,  wbolly  tbe 
work  of  art  wben  tbe  grounds  were  laid  out,  it  bas  none  of  tbe  stiff 
and  bard  look  of  tbe  surface  in  tbe  arboretum  at  Derby,  but  is 
charmingly  bke  tbe  most  pleasing  bits  of  natural  flowing  surface.  I 
cannot,  therefore,  but  believe  tbat  Mr.  Marnock,  tbe  able  landscape 
gardener  wbo  laid  out  tbis  place,  convinced  me  by  tbis  single  speci- 
men, tbat  be  is  a  man  of  great  skill  and  refined  taste  in  bis  art.  I 
saw  no  new  place  abroad  laid  out  in  a  more  entirely  satisfactory 
manner. 

In  order  to  give  the  garden  a  character  and  purpose,  beyond  that 
of  mere  pleasure-grounds  (although  enjoyment  of  it  in  the  latter 
sense  is  the  main  object),  a  botanical  arrangement  and  a  medical 
arrangement  of  plants,  are  both  very  well  carried  out  here — I  believe 
for  the  use  of  the  students  of  the  London  University  But  instead 
of  bringing  these  scientific  arrangements  into  the  pleasure-ground 
portion,  which  meets  the  eye  of  the  ordinary  visitor  of  the  garden, 
they  are  kept  in  one  of  the  side  scenes — quite  in  the  background  ; 
so  that  though  they  add  greatly  to  the  interest,  and  general  extent 
of  tbe  garden  wben  sought  for,  they  do  not  mar  the  beauty  or 
elegance  of  its  conspicuous  outHnes. 

In  tbe  great  conservatory,  though  the  larger  number  of  tbe 
plants  were  out  in  their  summer  quarters,  the  whole  effect  was  still 
extremely  pleasing,  from  the  noble  specimens  of  certain  showy  sum- 
mer-blooming plants,  growing  here  and  there  throughout  tbe  open 
6pace,  which  was  elsewhere  turned  into  a  broad  gravel  walk.  These 


520 


LETTERS  FROM  ENGLAND. 


were  either  gigantic  specimens  of  brugmansias,  loaded  with  their 
great  white  trumpet  flowers — enormous  scarlet  geraniums,  trained  as 
pyramids,  ten  feet  high,  and  brilliant  with  bloom — rich  passifloras, 
and  other  vines,  climbing  up  the  rafters,  or  very  finely  grown  exotics, 
in  tubs  or  large  pots. 

Among  the  latter,  I  noticed  with  astonishment,  fuchsias,  grown 
like  standard  roses  to  a  wonderful  size,  running  up  with  a  perfectly 
straight  stem  sixteen  feet  high,  and  branching  into  a  fine  spreading 
or  depending  head  of  foliage,  studded  at  every  point  with  their 
graceful  ear-drops.  Fuchsia  corrallina,  among  several  species,  was 
much  the  finest,  treated  in  this  way, — its  luxuriant  dark  foliage,  and 
deep  crimson-purple  flowers  being  quite  beautiful. 

I  saw  here  two  rare  plants,  which  will,  I  think,  be  very  fine  de- 
corations to  our  gardens  in  summer.  The  first  is  Habrothamnus 
elegans  ;  a  plant  from  Mexico,  which,  it  is  thought,  may  stand  the 
winter  here.*  It  was  planted  in  the  ground  here,  and  trained  to  a 
pillar  some  ten  or  twelve  feet  high.  The  end  of  every  branch  was 
loaded  with  clusters  of  fine  dark  pink  flowers  (of  the  tint  of  a  ripe 
Antwerp  raspberry)  ;  and  I  was  told  it  blooms  without  interruption 
from  spring  to  winter.  The  size,  color,  and  profusion  of  the  blossoms 
are  striking,  and  the  whole  plant  is  extremely  showy.  The  second 
favorite  is  the  Oestrum  aurantiacum  ;  a  greenhouse  shrub,  lately  in 
troduced  from  Guatemala.  It  grows  six  or  eight  feet  high,  with  fine 
luxuriant  shoots,  and  is  loaded  all  summer  with  rich  clusters  of 
golden  buff  blossoms — very  ornamental.  Both  these  plants  made 
a.  grand  display  here  in  the  conservatory,  planted  in  the  ground  and 
trained  to  the  columns ;  but  if  I  am  not  greatly  mistaken,  both  will 
thrive  equally  well  in  the  United  States,  if  turned  out  in  the  open 
border,  and  trained  up  to  stakes  like  the  dahlia, — the  roots  being 
taken  up  and  housed  in  winter. 

The  society  of  subscribers  to  whom  this  garden  belongs,  have 
two  or  three  horticultural  shows  in  the  grounds,  every  year,  which 
are  among  the  most  brilliant  things  of  the  kind  on  this  side  of  the 
Atlantic.  On  these  occasions,  the  grounds  are  open  to  any  one  who 
chooses  to  purchase  tickets,  and  are  thronged  by  thousands  of  visit- 

*  I  think  Mr.  Buist  has  introduced  this  fine  plant,  and  has  it  in  his  nur- 
sery. 


THE  BOTANIC  GARDEN  IN  REGENT'S  PARK. 


521 


ors.  The  display  of  fruits  and  flowers  takes  place  in  large  tents 
and  marquees,  pitched  on  the  lawn,  and  bands  of  music  perform  in 
the  gardens.  All  the  elite  of  the  West  End  of  London  are  here ;  for 
in  London,  horticultural  shows  are  even  more  fashionable  than  the 
opera ;  and  a  gayer  or  more  beautiful  sight  is  not  easily  found.  At 
the  last  festival  of  this  sort,  the  great  novelty  was  a  magnificent  plat, 
or  garden  of  rhododendrons,  of  all  colors ;  the  plants,  in  full  bloom, 
were  large  and  finely-grown  specimens,  sent  beforehand  from  various 
nursery  gardens  fifty  or  one  hundred  miles  off,  planted  here  in  a 
scene  by  themselves,  where  they  bloomed  in  the  same  perfection  as 
if  they  had  grown  here  for  a  dozen  years. 

I  was  exceedingly  gratified  with  this  subscription  garden,  and 
examined  it  in  all  its  details  with  great  attention.  In  its  tasteful 
arrangement,  its  moderate  extent,  its  management  and  its  position,  it 
afforded  the  finest  possible  type  for  a  similar  establishment  near  one 
of  our  largest  cities.  Here  are  eighteen  acres  of  the  most  exquisite 
lawn,  pleasure-grounds,  and  conservatory,  wholly  created  and  main- 
tained by  sixteen  hundred  individuals,  and  enjoyed  by,  perhaps,  five 
or  six  thousand  persons  more — their  friends  at  all  times.  Here  is  a 
fine  example  of  the  art  of  landscape-gardening,  which,  if  it  were 
near  New- York,  Philadelphia,  or  Boston,  so  that  it  could  be  seen 
by  those  who  are  anxious  to  learn,  would  have  a  great  influence  on 
the  taste  of  the  country  in  ornamentel  gardening  ;  here  is  the  most 
perfect  exhibition  ground,  for  the  shows  of  a  horticultural  society, 
that  can  be  imagined  or  devised  ;  and  here  is  a  scientific  arrange- 
ment of  plants,  for  the  study  of  botanical  and  medical  classes, — the 
living  plants  arranged  according  to  the  best  system.  Half  the  money 
which  has  been  paid  annually  into  the  credit  account  of  the  ceme- 
teries of  Greenwood,  Mount  Auburn,  or  Laurel  Hill,  would  keep  up 
in  the  very  highest  condition  (as  this  garden  is  kept),  one  like  it  in 
the  neighborhood  of  any  of  our  cities.  And  the  precincts  of  the 
Elysian  fields,  near  New- York — Brookline,  near  Boston — on  the 
banks  of  the  Wissahicon,  near  Philadelphia,  would  be  as  fine  loca- 
lities for  such  subscription  gardens  as  Regent's  Park  is  for  London. 
If  our  citizens,  who  have  the  money,  could  come  here  and  see  what 
it  will  do,  expended  in  this  way,  I  am  sure  they  would  not  hesitate 
to  subscribe  the  "  needful." 


V. 


THE  ISLE  OF  WIGHT. 

August,  1850. 

FOUR  days  in  the  Isle  of  Wight : — the  weather,  the  climate, 
and  the  scenery,  all  dehghtful.  The  Island  itself,  about  fifteen 
miles  long,  is  England  in  miniature — with  its  hedges,  green  lawns, 
soft-tufted  verdure — now  and  then  a  great  house,  and  plenty  of 
ornee  cottages.  In  some  respects  it  fell  below,  but  in  many,  fully 
equalled  my  expectations.  If  you  think  of  it  as  the  "  Garden  of 
England,"  it  will  disappoint  you,  for  there  are  counties  in  England 
— for  example,  Warwickshire — better  cultivated,  and  more  soignee, 
than  this  spot.  A  considerable  portion  of  the  Island — especially 
the  western  end,  is  neither  cultivated  fields  nor  gardens,  but  broad 
downs  and  high  bluffs.  I  should  say  that  you  would  get  the  best 
idea  of  the  Isle  of  Wight,  without  seeing  it,  by  imagining  it  com- 
posed partly  of  Nahant,  and  partly  of  Brookline — near  Boston — 
the  prettiest  rural  nest  of  cottage  villas  in  America.  The  bare  grass 
slopes  and  bluffs  of  Nahant,  will  correspond  to  the  western  part  of 
the  Isle  of  Wight,  while  the  suburbs  of  Boston,  that  I  have  men- 
tioned, are  a  very  fair  offset  to  the  more  decorated  and  cultivated 
cottages  and  grounds  of  the  eastern  and  southern  portions. 

You  cross  from  Southampton  to  the  Island,  in  rather  less  than 
an  hour,  by  one  of  the  small  mail  steamers  plying  here.  The 
towns  of  East  and  West  Cowes,  where  you  land,  as  well  as  Ryde, 
which  is  a  few  miles  further,  have  quite  a  gay  appearance  at  this 
season  of  the  year,  from  the  harbors  being  filled  with  the  pretty 
vessels  of  the  various  yacht  clubs,  that  hold  their  regattas  here — 


THE  ISLE  OF  WIGHT. 


523 


and  the  accommodation  at  the  hotels  is,  for  the  time  at  least,  brought 
up  to  the  style  and  prices  which  the  titled  yachtmen  naturally  be- 
get. The  flag  of  the  admiral  of  this  fancy  fleet,  the  Earl  of  Yar- 
borough,  floated  from  the  mast  of  his  fast-looking  vessel,  and  a  va- 
riety of  craft,  of  all  sizes,  lying  about  her,  gave  the  whole  neighbor- 
hood an  air  of  great  life  and  animation. 

Our  party,  three  in  number,  took  one  of  the  light,  open  car- 
riages, with  which  the  Island  abounds,  and  started,  the  next  morning 
after  our  arrival,  to  explore  it  pretty  thoroughly. 

The  neighborhood  of  East  Cowes,  abounds  with  pretty  seats,  and, 
on  the  opposite  shore,  are  numberless  little  cottages,  by  the  side  of 
the  water,  "  to  let,"  with  all  the  cosy  furniture  in-doors,  of  English 
domestic  life,  and  out-of-door  accompaniments  of  trees  and  shrubs, 
and  overhanging  vines,  that  gave  them  a  very  inviting  appearance. 
Although  I  had  never  lived  under  the  authority  of  a  landlord,  I 
could  find  nothing  but  temptations  to  become  a  lessee  of  such  pretty 
domicils  as  these.  They  look  so  truly  home-ish,  and  tell  you  at  a 
glance,  such  a  story  of  years  of  the  tenderest  care  and  attention,  in 
all  that  makes  a  cottage  charming,  that  they  make  one  long  to  stop 
acting  the  traveller,  and  nestle  down  in  the  bosom  of  that  peaceful 
domestic  life,  which  they  suggest. 

A  short  distance,  perhaps  a  mile,  from  Cowes,  is  Osborne  House 
— the  marine  residence  of  Victoria.  This  place  is  her  private  pro- 
perty, and  having  been  almost  wholly  erected  within  a  few  years 
past,  may  be  said  to  afford  a  tolerable  index  to  the  taste  of  her  Ma- 
jesty. The  residence  is  an  extensive  villa,  in  the  modern  Italian 
style,  with  a  front  of  perhaps  two  hundred  feet,  and  the  outlines 
picturesquely  broken  by  tower  or  campanile.  It  stands  in  the  midst 
of  a  sandy  plain,  which  is  level  around  the  house  and  towards  the 
road,  and  undulating  and  broken  towards  the  sea — of  which  it  com- 
mands fine  views. 

It  is  fenced  off  from  the  highway  by  a  close,  rough  board  "  park 
paling,"  some  seven  or  eight  feet  high.  Within  this  fence  is  a 
belt  of  young  trees,  and  scattered  here  and  there,  over  the  surface 
of  most  of  the  inclosure,  are  groups  and  patches  of  small  trees  and 
shrubs,  newly  planted.  The  whole  place  has,  most  completely,  the 
look  of  the  pretentious  place  of  some  of  our  wealthy  men  at  home, 


524 


LETTERS  FROM  ENGLAND. 


who,  turning  their  backs  upon  the  numberless  fine  natural  sites,  with 
which  our  country  abounds,  choose  the  barest  and  baldest  situation, 
in  order  that  they  may  dig,  delve,  level  and  grade,  and  spend  half 
then-  fortunes,  in  doing  what  nature  has,  not  a  mile  distant,  offered 
to  them  ready  made,  and  a  thousand  times  more  beautifully  done. 
Osborne  House  may  be  a  tolerable  residence  (we  mean  respecting 
its  out-of-door  pleasure)  fifty  years  hence  ;  but  it  is  almost  the  only 
country-seat  that  we  saw  in  England,  that  looked  thoroughly  raw  and 
uncomfortable.  I  suppose,  in  a  country  where  every  thing  seems 
finished,  there  is  a  singular  pleasure  in  taking  a  place  in  the  rough, 
and  working  beauties  out  of  tameness  and  insipidity.  The  Queen 
lives  here,  and  walks  and  drives  about  the  neighborhood,  in  a  com- 
paratively simple  and  unostentatious  manner,  and  attracts  very  little 
attention,  and  her  husband  practises  fanning  and  planting,  quite  in 
good  earnest. 

A  country-seat,  only  a  mile  distant,  in  a  thoroughly  English 
taste,  was  a  complete  contrast  to  the  foregoing,  and  gave  us  great 
pleasure.  This  is  Norris  Castle,  built  by  Lord  Seymour,  but  now 
the  property  of  Mr.  Bell,  who  resides  here.  Neither  the  place,  nor 
the  house,  is  larger  than  several  on  the  Hudson,  and  the  grounds 
reminded  me,  in  the  simple  lawn  or  park,  sprinkled  with  fine  groups 
of  trees,  of  Livingston  Manor  and  Ellerslie.  The  house  gave  me 
greater  pleasure,  than  any  modern  castellated  building  that  I  have 
seen  ;  partly  because  it  was  simple,  and  essentially  domestic-looking, 
and  yet,  with  a  fine  relish  of  antiquity  about  it.  The  facade  may, 
perhaps,  be  one  hundred  and  thirty  feet,  and  I  was  never  more  sur- 
prised than  when  I  learned  that  the  whole  was  erected  quite  lately. 
The  walls  are  of  gray  stone,  rather  rough,  and  they  get  a  large  part 
of  their  beauty  from  the  luxuriant  vines  that  festoon  every  part  of 
the  castle.  The  vines  are  the  Ivy,  and  our  Virginia  creeper,  inter- 
mingled, and  as  both  cling  to  the  stone,  they  form  the  most  pictur- 
esque drapery,  which  has,  in  a  few  years,  reached  to  the  top  of  the 
battlemented  tower,  and  given  a  mellow  and  venerable  character  to 
the  whole  edifice. 

We  dined  at  Newport,  the  substantial  little  town,  which,  lying 
nearly  in  the  centre  of  the  Island,  serves  as  its  capital  and  principal 
market.    The  Isle  of  Wight,  enjoying,  as  it  does,  a  wholly  insulated 


THE  ISLE  «F  WIGHT. 


525 


position,  is  almost  the  only  English  ground  not  interlaced  by  rail- 
roads. For  this  season,  the  genuine  stage-coacn,  now  comparatively 
obsolete  elsewhere,  still  flourishes  here,  and  still  carries  a  number  of 
passengers  outside,  quite  at  variance  with  all  our  ideas  of  safety 
and  speed.  The  guard,  who  accompanies  these  coaches,  usually  per- 
forms an  obligato  on  the  French  horn  or  key  bugle,  just  before  the 
coach  starts — and  performs  it  too,  with  so  much  spirit  and  taste, 
that  it  was  not  without  some  difficulty  I  could  resist  the  temptation 
to  join  his  party.  Progress,  and  the  spirit  of  the  times,  though 
they  give  us  most  substantial  benefits,  in  the  shape  of  railroads,  etc., 
certainly  do  not  add  to  the  poetry  of  life — as  I  thought  when  I 
compared  the  delicious  air  of  Bellini,  played  by  the  coach  guard, 
with  the  horrible  screams  of  the  steam-whistle  of  the  locomotive — 
now  associated  with  the  travel  of  all  Christendom. 

It  is  but  a  mile  from  Newport  to  Carisbrook  Castle — one  of  the 
most  interesting  old  ruins  in  England.  It  crowns  a  fine  hill,  and 
from  the  top  of  its  ruined  towers,  you  look  over  a  lovely  landscape 
of  hill  and  vale,  picturesque  villages,  and  green  meadows.  The 
castle,  itself,  with  its  fortifications,  covers  perhaps  half  a  dozen  acres, 
and  is  just  in  that  state  of  ruin  and  decay,  best  calculated  to  excite 
the  imagination,  and  send  one  upon  a  voyage  into  dream-land. 
You  clamber  over  the  parapets,  and  look  out  from  amid  the  mould- 
ering battlements,  mantled  with  the  richest  masses  of  ivy,  and  see 
wild  trees  growing  in  the  very  centre  of  what  were  once  stately 
apartments.  Here  is  the  very  window  from  which  Charles  I.  vainly 
endeavored  to  make  his  escape,  when  he  was  a  prisoner  within 
these  walls,  two  hundred  years  ago  (164*7).  I  felt  tempted  to  ques- 
tion the  stone  walls  around  me,  of  the  sad  soliloquies  which  they 
had  heard  uttered  by  that  royal  prisoner  and  his  children,  confined 
here  after  him.  But  the  stone  looked  silent  and  cold ;  the  ivy, 
however,  so  full  of  mingled  life  and  health  and  antiquity,  seemed 
full  of  the  mysterious  secrets  of  the  place,  and  would,  doubtless, 
have  unburdened  itself  to  a  willing  ear,  if  any  such  would  finger 
here  long  enough  to  get  into  its  confidence.  I  looked  down  into 
the  vast  well,  in  the  centre  of  the  castle,  three  hundred  feet  deep, 
and  still  in  excellent  order — from  which  water  is  drawn  by  an  ass, 
walking  his  slow  rounds  inside  a  large  windlass  wheel.    I  clambered 


526 


LETTERS  FROM  ENGLAND. 


up  the  seventy-two  stone  steps  that  led  into  the  high  old  ruined 
keep,  and  found  one  of  my  companions  (who  is  a  military  man) 
discoursing  to  a  little  group  of  tourists,  who  had  made  a  picnic  on 
the  ramparts,  about  the  nature  of  the  fortifications — breastworks — 
and  bastions,  which  cover  some  fifteen  or  twenty  acres  under  the 
castle  walls.  While  he  was  demonstrating  how  easily  this  ancient 
stronghold  could  be  taken  by  a  modern  besieger,  I  speculated  on 
the  quiet  way  in  which  a  few  types  and  a  printing  press  are,  at  the 
present  moment,  far  more  powerful  restrainers  of  wayward  sov- 
ereigns, and  more  able  protectors  of  the  rights  of  the  people,  than 
the  fierce  battlements,  and  standing  war  dogs,  of  the  old  castles  of 
two  centuries  ago.  The  imagination  is  so  excited  by  these  strong 
old  castles,  now  fast  crmnbhng  into  dust,  that  we  wonder  what  the 
people  of  two  hundred  years  hence  will  have,  to  be  romantic  and 
picturesque  about,  as  emblems  of  power  in  a  by-gone  age.  An  old 
printing-press,  or  galvanic  battery,  perhaps  !  No — even  they  will 
be  melted  up  for  then-  value,  as  old  metal. 

We  drove  from  Carisbrook,  to  the  extreme  end  of  the  Island — 
saw  the  Needles,  the  colored  sands,  and  the  white  cliffs  of  Albion, 
and  returned  by  the  south  side.  What  pleased  me  more  than  even 
the  sea  views,  and  the  bold  bays,  and  snowy  cliffs  (perhaps  from 
novelty),  were  the  Downs — those  long  reaches  of  gently  sloping  sur- 
face, covered  with  very  short  grass — as  close  and  fine  as  the  finest 
lawn.  They  are  so  smooth  and  hard,  and  the  air  is  so  pure  and 
exhilarating,  the  temperature  so  bracing  and  delightful,  that  one  is 
tempted  into  walking — or  even  running — miles  and  miles,  upon 
them.  Here  and  there,  mingled  with  the  grass,  on  the  breeziest 
parts  of  the  Downs,  1  saw  tufts  of  heather,  in  full  bloom,  only  two 
or  three  inches  high — their  purple  bells  embroidering,  as  with  the 
most  delicate  pattern,  the  fragrant  turf.  Herds  of  sheep  graze  upon 
these  Downs,  and  the  flavor  of  the  mutton,  as  you  may  suppose,  is 
not  despised  by  those  who  cannot  live  upon  ah,  however  elastic  and 
exhilarating. 

All  over  the  Island,  the  roads,  sometimes  broad — but  often 
mere  narrow  lanes — are  bordered  by  high  hawthorn  hedges — so 
that  frequently  you  drive  for  a  mile  or  more,  without  getting  a  peep 
beyond  these  leafy  walls  of  verdure.    I  could  imagine  that  in  May, 


THE  ISLE  OE  WIGHT. 


521 


when  these  hedges  are  all  white  with  blossoms,  the  whole  Island 
must  be  a  very  gay  landscape — but  just  now,  they  only  served  to 
confirm  me  in  my  opinion  of  the  Englishman's  fondness  for  seclu- 
sion and  privacy,  in  his  own  demesne.  Just  in  proportion  to  the 
smallness  of  his  place,  his  desire  to  shut  out  all  the  rest  of  the  world 
increases — so  that  if  he  only  owns  half  an  acre,  his  hedge  shall  be 
eight  feet  high,  and  the  sanctity  of  the  paradise  within  remains  in- 
violate. The  solid,  high,  well-built  stone  wall  around  some  of  the 
little  cottage  and  villa  places,  of  half  an  acre,  on  the  south  side  of 
the  Island,  astonished  me,  and  gave  me  a  new  understanding  of  the 
saying,  that  "  every  man's  house  is  his  castle."  Here,  at  least,  I 
thought,  it  is  clear  that  people  understand  what  is  meant  by  private 
rights,  and  intend  to  have  them  respected. 

It  was  not  until  I  reached  the  pretty  villages  of  Bowchurch, 
Shanklin,  and  Ventnor,  that  my  ideal  of  the  Isle  of  Wight  was  re- 
alized. These  villages  lie  on  the  south  side  of  the  Island,  backed 
by  steep  hills,  and  sloping  to  the  sea.  The  climate  is  almost  per- 
fection. It  is  neither  hot  in  summer  nor  cold  in  winter,  and  though 
open  to  all  the  sea-breezes,  the  latter  seem  shorn  of  all  their  violence 
here.  The  consequence  is,  they  enjoy  that  perfect  marriage  of  the 
land  and  sea  so  rarely  witnessed  in  northern  climates.  The  finest 
groves  and  woods,  the  richest  shrubbery  and  flower-gardens,  the 
most  emerald-like  glades  of  turf,  here  run  down  almost  to  the  beach, 
and  you  have  all  the  luxuriant  beauty  of  vegetation,  in  its  loveliest 
forms,  joined  to  all  the  sublimity,  life  and  excitement  of  the  ocean 
views.  As  to  the  climate,  you  may  judge  of  its  mildness  and  uni- 
formity, when  I  tell  you  that  the  bay  trees  of  the  Mediterranean 
grow  here  on  the  lawns,  as  luxuriantly  as  snow-balls  do  at  home,  and 
fuchsias,  as  tall  as  your  head,  make  rich  masses  in  almost  every 
garden,  and  stand  the  winter  as  well  here,  as  lilacs  or  syringoes  do 
with  us.  In  the  neighborhood  of  Shanklin,  I  saw  a  charming  old 
parsonage  house — the  very  picture  of  spacious  ease  and  comfort — 
with  its  great  bay  windows,  its  picturesque  gables,  and  its  thatched 
roof — quite  embowered  in  tall  myrtles — Roman  myrtles — one  of 
our  cherished  green-house  plants,  that  here  have  grown  thirty  or 
forty  feet  high,  quite  above  the  eaves  !  Bays,  Portugal  laurels,  hol- 
lies and  China  roses,  surround  this  parsonage,  and  never  lose  their 


528 


LETTERS  FROM  ENGLAND. 


freshness  and  verdure  (the  owner  assured  me  that  the  roses  bloomed 
all  winter  long),  cheating  the  inhabitants  into  the  belief  that  winter 
is  an  allegory,  or  if  not,  has  only  a  substantial  existence  in  Iceland 
or  Spitzbergen. 

Then  the  hotels  here — especially  in  Shanklin — are  absolutely  ro 
mantic  in  their  rural  beauty.  Designed  like  the  prettiest  cottages, 
or  rather  in  a  quaint  and  rambling  style,  half  cottage  and  half  villa, 
the  roof  covered  with  thatch,  and  the  walls  with  ivy,  jessamines, 
and  perpetual  roses,  and  set  down  in  the  midst  of  a  charming  lawn, 
and  surrounded  by  shrubbery,  you  feel  the  same  reluctance  to  take 
the  room  which  the  chambermaid — with  the  freshest  of  roses  in  her 
cheeks,  and  the  cleanest  of  caps  upon  her  head — shows  you,  as  you 
would  in  hiring  the  apartments  of  some  tasteful  friend  in  reduced 
circumstances.  When  you  rise  from  your  dinner  (admirably  served), 
always  in  a  private  parlor,  the  casement  windows  open  upon  a  vel- 
vety lawn,  bright  with  masses  of  scarlet  geraniums,  verbenas,  and  tea 
roses  set  in  the  turf,  and  you  give  yourself  up  to  the  profound  con- 
viction that  for  snugness,  and  cosiness,  and  perfection  at  a  rural  inn, 
the  world  can  contain  nothing  better  than  may  be  found  in  the  Isle 
of  Wight. 

Bonchurch  disputes  the  palm  with  Shanklin,  for  picturesque  and 

sylvan  beauty.    We  made  a  visit  here  to  Capt.  S  of  the  Royal 

Navy,  whose  beautiful  villa  in  the  Elizabethan  style,  gave  me  an 
opportunity  for  indulging  my  architectural  and  antiquarian  taste  to 
the  utmost.  Imagine  an  entrance  through  a  rocky  dell,  the  steep 
sides  of  which  are  clothed  with  the  richest  climbing  plants,  between 
which  your  carriage  winds  for  some  distance,  passing  under  a  light 
airy  bridge,  with  festoons  of  ivy  and  clusters  of  blooming  creepers 
waving  over  your  head .  You  soon  emerge  upon  the  prettiest  of 
little  lawns,  studded  with  fine  oaks,  and  running  down  to  the  very 
shore  of  the  sea.  On  the  left  are  shrubberies,  pleasure-grounds, 
kitchen  and  flower  gardens,  all  in  then-  place,  and  though  you  think 
the  place  one  of  sixty  or  eighty  acres,  there  are  not  above  twenty. 

The  house  itself  is  one  of  the  most  picturesque  and  agreeable 
residences  of  moderate  size  that  I  have  ever  seen.  Its  interior, 
especially,  unites  architectural  beauty,  antique  character,  and  modern 
comfort,  to  a  surprising  degree.    Every  room  seemed  to  have  been 


THE  ISLE  OF  WIGHT. 


529 


ftudied,  so  that  not  a  feature  was  omitted,  or  an  effect  lost,  that  could 
add  to  the  pleasure  or  increase  the  beauty  of  a  home  of  this  kind. 

If  I  was  delighted  with  the  house,  I  was  astonished  with  the 
furniture.  It  was  all  in  the  antique  Elizabethan  style — richly 
carved  in  dark  oak  or  ebony.  This  is  not  very  rare  in  England,  and 
I  had  seen  a  good  deal  of  the  same  style  in  many  of  the  great 
country  mansions  before.  But  almost  every  piece  here,  was  either 
a  masterpiece  of  workmanship,  or  marked  by  singular  beauty  of 
design,  or  of  great  historical  interest.  Yet  the  effect  of  the  whole, 
and  the  adaptation  to  the  uses  of  each  separate  room,  had  been  con- 
sidered, so  that  the  ensemble  gave  the  impression  of  the  finest  unity 

of  taste.    Among  the  fine  specimens  which  Lady  S  had  the 

goodness  especially  to  make  us  acquainted  with,  I  remember  an 
exquisitely  carved  work-box  once  presented  by  Essex  to  Elizabeth, 
a  curious  silver  clock  that  belonged  to  Charles  L  (and  was  carried 
about  with  him  in  his  carriage  on  his  journeys) ;  and  a  superbly 
carved,  high  bedstead,  once  Sir  Walter  Raleigh's,  and  the  couch  of 
Cardinal  Wolsey.  There  was  an  old  Dutch  organ,  bearing  the  date 
1592,  of  singularly  beautiful  workmanship,  and  still  in  perfect  tone. 
Some  rare  and  unique  carved  oak  cabinets,  of  flemish  origin  one  of 
them  with  the  history  of  John  the  Baptist  carved  in  the  different 
panels,  challenged  the  most  elaborate  investigation.  Of  beautiful 
chairs,  seats,  and  carved  wainscot,  there  was  the  greatest  variety, 
and  in  short  the  house  was  at  once  a  museum  for  an  antiquarian — 
and  the  most  agreeable  home  to  live  in . 

This  villa  was  built  by  a  wealthy  eccentric — I  think  a  bachelor 
— who  wholly  finished  the  collection  only  a  few  years  ago.  He 
carried  his  passion  for  collecting  very  choice  and  rare  antique  furni- 
ture— especially  that  of  undoubted  historical  interest — to  such  an 
extent,  that  it  became  a  species  of  madness,  and  at  last  led  him 
through  a  very  large  fortune,  and  forced  him  to  surrender  the  whole 
to  his  creditors.  You  may  judge  something  of  the  cost  of  the  fur- 
niture— every  room  in  the  house  being  well  filled — when  I  tell  you 
that  for  a  single  Flemish  cabinet,  only  remarkable  for  its  superb 
carving,  not  for  any  history  attached  to  it,  he  paid  £900  (about 
$4,500).  The  property,  when  brought  into  market  in  the  gross 
34 


530 


LETTERS  FROM  ENGLAND. 


was  of  course  bought  by  the  present  owner  at  a  merely  nominal 
sum,  compared  with  its  original  cost. 

England,  though  in  the  main  remarkable  for  its  common  sense, 
abounds  with  instances  like  this,  of  large  wealth  applied  to  the  in- 
dulgence of  personal  taste — to  the  building  of  a  great  mansion,  the 
collection  of  books,  pictures,  or  to  the  indulgence  of  personal  whims 
or  fancies.  Thus  the  Earl  of  Harrington  has  in  his  seat  near  Derby, 
a  peculiar  spot  of  twenty  or  thirty  acres,  wholly  filled  with  the  rarest 
and  most  beautiful  evergreens  in  the  world — where  araucarias  and 
deodars,  bought  when  they  were  worth  five  or  ten  guineas  apiece, 
are  as  plentiful  now  as  hemlocks  in  Western  New- York  ;  where 
dark-green  Irish  yews  stand  along  the  walks  like  sable  sentinels,  and 
gold  and  silver  hollies  and  yews  are  cut  into  peacocks,  shepherds, 
and  shepherdesses,  and  all  manner  of  strange  and  fantastical  whim- 
sies. The  conceit,  though  odd  (I  had  a  glimpse  of  it),  is  the  finest 
specimen  of  its  kind  in  the  world — yet  the  owner — an  old  man  now 
— who  has  amused  himself  and  spent  vast  sums  on  this  garden  for 
twenty  years  past,  will  not  let  a  soul  enter  it — unless  it  may  be  some 
gardener  whom  it  is  impossible  to  imagine  a  critic.  Even  the  Duke 
of  Devonshire — so  the  story  goes — in  order  to  get  a  sight  of  it 
went  incog,  as  a  kitchen  gardener.  The  Duke  of  Marlborough,  a 
few  years  ago,  had  a  private  garden  at  Blenheim,  surrounded  by  a 
high  wall,  into  which  even  his  own  brother  had  not  been  admitted. 
You  see  even  the  most  amiable  qualities  of  the  heart — those  which 
lead  us  to  make  our  homes  happy — occasionally  run  into  a  mono- 
mania. 

I  left  the  Isle  of  Wight  with  the  feeling  that  if  I  should  ever 
need  the  nursing  of  soft  airs  and  kindly  influences  in  a  foreign  land, 
I  should  try  to  find  my  way  back  to  it  again.  Even  one,  blest  with 
excellent  health,  and  usually  insensible  to  the  magical  influence  which 
most  persons  find  in  a  change  of  air,  finds  something  added  to  the 
pleasurable  sensation  of  breathing  and  taking  exercise,  in  the  de- 
licious summer  freshness  of  this  spot. 

There  is  another  memorandum  which  I  made  here  and  which  is 
worth  relating.  In  England  at  large,  the  great  wealth  of  the  landed 
aristocracy,  and  the  enormous  size  of  their  establishments,  raises  the 
houses  and  gardens  to  a  scale  so  far  above  ours,  that  they  are  not 


THE  ISLE  OF  WIGHT. 


531 


directly  or  practically  instructive  to  Americans.  In  the  Isle  of 
"Wight,  on  the  other  hand,  are  numerous  pretty  cottages,  villas  and 
country  houses,  almost  precisely  on  a  transatlantic  scale  as  to  the 
first  cost  and  the  style  of  living.  For  this  reason,  one  who  can  only 
learn  by  seeing  the  thing  done  to  a  scale  that  he  can  easily  measure, 
should  come  to  the  Isle  of  Wight  to  study  how  to  get  the  most  for  \ 
his  money — rather  than  to  Chatsworth  or  Eaton  Hall.  And  it  is 
this  kind  of  rural  beauty,  the  tasteful  embellishment  of  small  places, 
for  which  the  United  States  will,  I  am  confident,  become  celebrated 
in  fifty  years  more. 


VI. 


WOBURN  ABBEY. 

September,  1850. 

I RECEIVED  in  London,  a  note  from  the  Duke  of  Bedford,  which 
led  me,  while  I  was  in  Bedfordshire,  to  make  a  visit  to  Woburn 
Abbey. 

This  is  considered  one  of  the  most  complete  estates  and  estab- 
lishments in  the  kingdom.  It  is  fully  equal  to  Chatsworth,  but  quite 
in  another  way.  Chatsworth  is  semi-continental,  or  rather  it  is  the 
concentration  of  every  thing  that  European  art  can  do  to  embellish 
and  render  beautiful  a  great  country  residence.  "Wobum  Abbey  is 
thoroughly  English ;  that  is,  it  does  not  aim  at  beauty,  so  much  as 
grandeur  of  extent  and  substantial  completeness,  united  with  the 
most  systematic  and  thorough  administration  of  the  whole.  Besides 
this,  it  interested  me  much  as  the  home,  for  exactly  three  centuries, 
of  a  family  which  has  adorned  its  high  station  by  the  highest  vir- 
tues, and  by  an  especial  devotion  to  the  interests  of  the  soil.*  The 
present  Duke  of  Bedford  is  one  of  the  largest  and  most  scientific 
farmers  in  England,  and  his  father,  the  late  Duke,  was  not  only  an 
enthusiastic  agriculturist,  but  the  greatest  arboriculturist  and  botanist 
of  his  day,  whose  works,  both  practical  and  literary,  made  their 
mark  upon  the  age. 

The  Woburn  estate  consists  of  about  thirty  thousand  acres  of 

*  The  first  John  Kussell,  Duke  of  Bedford,  came  into  possession  of  this 
estate,  in  1549,  and  it  has  descended  in  the  family  ever  since.  In  one  of  the 
apartments  of  the  palace  is  a  series  of  miniature  portraits  of  the  heads  of  the 
family  in  an  unbroken  line,  for  300  years. 


WOBURN  ABBEY. 


533 


land.  There  is  a  fine  park  of  three  thousand  acres.  You  enter  the 
approach  through  a  singularly  rich  avenue  of  evergreens,  composed 
of  a  belt  perhaps  one  hundred  feet  broad,  sloping  down  like  an  am- 
phitheatre of  foliage,  from  tall  Norway  spruces  and  pines  in  the 
background,  to  rich  hollies  and  Portugal  laurels  in  front.  This 
continues,  perhaps,  half  a  mile,  and  then  you  leave  it  and  wind 
through  an  open  park,  spacious  and  grand — for  a  couple  of  miles 
— till  you  reach  the  Abbey.  This  is  not  a  building  in  an  antique 
style,  but  a  grand  and  massive  pile  in  the  classical  manner,  built 
about  the  middle  of  the  last  century  on  the  site  of  the  old  Abbey. 
I  have  said  this  place  seemed  to  me  essentially  English.  The  first 
sight  of  the  house  is  peculiarly  so.  It  is  built  of  Portland  stone, 
and  has  that  mossy,  discolored  look  which  gathers  about  even  mo- 
dern buildings  in  this  damp  climate,  and  which  we  in  America 
know  nothing  of,  under  our  pure  and  bright  skies — where  the  fresh- 
ness of  stone  remains  unsullied  almost  any  length  of  time. 

Woburn  Abbey  is  a  large  palace,  and  containing  as  it  does  the 
accumulated  luxuries,  treasures  of  art,  refinements,  and  comforts  of 
so  old  and  wealthy  a  family  (with  an  income  of  nearly  a  million 
of  our  money),  you  will  not  be  surprised  when  I  say  that  we  have 
nothing  with  which  to  compare  it.  Indeed,  I  believe  Woburn  is 
considered  the  most  complete  house  in  England,  and  that  is  saying 
a  good  deal,  when  you  remember  that  there  are  20,000  private 
houses  in  Great  Britain,  larger  than  our  President's  House.  To  get 
an  idea  of  it,  you  must  imagine  a  square  mass,  about  which,  exter- 
nally— especially  on  the  side  fronting  the  park — there  is  little  to  im- 
press you  ;  only  the  appearance  of  large  size  and  an  air  of  simple 
dignity.  Imagine  this  quadrangular  pile  three  stories  high  on  the 
park  or  entrance  front,  and  two  stories  high  on  the  garden  or  rear, 
and  over  two  hundred  feet  in  length,  on  each  side.  The  drawing- 
room  floor,  though  in  the  second  story,  is  therefore  exactly  on  a 
level  with  the  gardens  and  pleasure-grounds  in  the  rear,  and  the 
whole  of  this  large  floor  is  occupied  with  an  unbroken  suite  of 
superb  apartments — drawing-rooms,  picture  galleries,  music-rooms, 
library,  etc. — projecting  and  receding,  and  stealing  out  and  in  among 
the  delicious  scenery  of  the  pleasure-grounds,  in  the  most  agreeable 
manner.    There  is  a  noble  library  with  20,000  volumes ;  a  gallery, 


534  , 


LETTERS  FROM  ENGLAND. 


one  hundred  and  forty  feet  long,  filled  with  fine  sculpture  (among 
other  things  the  original  group  of  the  three  graces,  by  Canova), 
and  a  sort  of  wide  corridor  running  all  around  the  quadrangle, 
filled  with  cabinets  of  natural  history,  works  of  art,  &c,  and  form- 
ing the  most  interesting  in-door  walk  in  dull  weather.  Pictures  by 
the  great  masters,  especially  portraits,  these  rooms  are  very  rich  in, 
and  among  other  things  I  noticed  casts  in  plaster,  of  all  the  cele- 
brated animals  that  were  reared  here  by  the  late  Duke. 

Now,  imagine  the  quadrangle  continued  in  the  rear  on  one  side 
next  the  sculpture  gallery,  through  a  colonnade-like  side  series 
of  buildings,  including  riding -house,  tennis  court,  etc.,  a  quarter  of 
a  mile,  to  the  stables,  which  are  of  themselves  larger  than  most 
country  houses ;  imagine  hot-houses  and  conservatories  almost  with- 
out number,  connected  with  the  house  by  covered  passages,  so  as  to 
combine  the  utmost  comfort  and  beauty  ;  imagine  an  aviary  con- 
sisting of  a  cottage  and  the  grounds  about  it  fenced  in  and  filled 
with  all  manner  of  birds  of  brilliant  and  beautiful  plumage ;  ima- 
gine a  large  dairy,  fitted-  up  in  the  Chinese  style  with  a  fountain  in 
the  middle,  and  the  richest  porcelain  vessels  for  milk  and  butter  ; 
imagine  a  private  garden  of  bowers  and  trellis  work,  embosomed  in 
creepers,  which  belongs  especially  to  the  Duchess,  and  you  have  a 
kind  of  sketchy  outline  of  the  immediate  accessories  of  Woburn 
Abbey.  They  occupy  the  space  of  a  little  village  in  themselves  ; 
but  you  would  gather  no  idea  of  the  luxury  and  comfort  they  afford, 
did  you  for  a  moment  forget  that  the  whole  is  managed  with  that 
order  and  system  which  are  nowhere  to  be  found  so  perfect  as  in 
England.  I  must  add,  to  give  you  another  idea  of  the  establish- 
ment, that  a  hundred  beds  are  made  up  daily  for  the  family  and 
household  alone,  exclusive  of  guests.  The  pleasure-grounds,  which 
surround  three  sides  of  the  house,  and  upon  which  these  rooms  open, 
are  so  beautiful  and  complete  that  you  must  allow  me  to  dwell  upon 
them  a  little.  They  consist  of  a  series  of  different  gardens  merging 
one  into  the  other,  so  as  to  produce  a  delightful  variety,  and  cover- 
ing a  space  of  many  acres — about  which  I  walked  in  so  bewildered 
a  state  of  delight  that  I  am  quite  unable  to  say  how  large  they  are. 
I  know,  however,  that  they  contain  an  avenue  of  araucarias  backed 
by  another  of  Deodar  cedars  in  the  most  luxuriant  growth — each 


WOBURN  ABBEY. 


535 


line  upwards  of  1,000  feet  long.  A  fine  specimen  of  the  latter  tree, 
twenty-five  or  thirty  feet  high,  attracted  my  attention,  and  there 
was  another,  twenty-five  feet,  of  the  beautiful  Norfolk  Island  pine, 
growing  in  the  open  ground,  with  the  shelter  of  a  glazed  frame  in 
winter.  These  pleasure-grounds,  however,  interested  me  most  in 
that  portion  called  the  American  garden — several  acres  of  sloping 
velvety  turf,  thickly  dotted  with  groups  of  rhododendrons,  azaleas, 
&c,  forming  the  richest  masses  of  dark  green  foliage  that  it  is  pos- 
sible to  conceive.  In  the  months  of  May  and  June,  when  these  are 
in  full  bloom,  this  must  be  a  scene  of  almost  dazzling  brilliancy. 
The  soil  for  them  had  all  been  formed  artificially,  and  consisted  of  a 
mixture  of  peat  and  white  sand,  in  which  the  rhododendrons  and 
kalmias  seemed  to  thrive  admirably. 

Besides  this  scene,  there  is  a  garden  composed  wholly  of  heaths, 
the  beds  cut  in  the  turf,  one  species  in  each  bed,  and  full  of  delicate 
bells  ;  a  parterre  flower-garden  in  which  a  striking  effect  was  pro- 
duced by  contrasting  vases  colored  quite  black,  with  rich  masses 
(growing  in  the  vases)  of  scarlet  geraniums.  I  also  saw  a  garden 
devoted  wholly  to  willows,  and  another  to  grasses — both  the  most 
complete  collections  of  these  two  genera  in  the  world — the  taste  of 
the  former  Duke — and  with  which  I  was  familiar  beforehand, 
through  the  "  Salictum  Woburnense"  and  Mr.  Sinclair's  work  on 
the  "  Grasses  of  Woburn." 

The  park  is  the  richest  in  large  evergreens  of  any  that  I  have 
ever  seen.  The  planting  taste  of  the  former  Duke  has  produced  at 
the  present  moment,  after  a  growth  of  fifty  or  sixty  years,  the  most 
superb  results.  The  Cedars  of  Lebanon — the  most  sublime  and 
venerable  of  all  trees,  and  the  grandest  of  all  evergreens,  bore  off 
the  palm — though  all  the  rare  pines  and  firs  that  were  known  to 
arboriculturists  half  a  century  ago  are  here  in  the  greatest  perfection 
— including  hollies  and  Portugal  laurels  which  one  is  accustomed 
to  think  of  as  shrubs,  with  great  trunks  like  timber  trees  and  mag- 
nificent heads  of  glossy  foliage.  A  grand  old  silver  fir  has  a 
straight  trunk  eighty  feet  high,  and  a  lover  of  trees  could  spend 
weeks  here  without  exhausting  the  arboricultural  interest  of  the 
park  alone — which  is,  to  be  sure,  some  ten  or  twelve  miles  round. 

A  very  picturesque  morceau  in  the  park,  inclosed  and  forming 


536 


LETTERS  FROM  ENGLAND. 


a  little  scene  by  itself,  is  called  the  Thornery.  It  is  an  abrupt  piece 
of  ground  covered  with  a  wild  looking  copse  of  old  thorns,  haze'is, 
dog-woods  and  fantastic  old  oaks,  and  threaded  by  walks  in  various 
directions.  In  the  centre  is  a  most  complete  little  cottage,  with  the 
neatest  Scotch  kitchen,  little  parlor  and  furniture  inside,  and  a  sort 
of  fairy  flower  garden  outside. 

All  this  may  be  considered  the  ornamental  portion  of  Woburn, 
and  I  have  endeavored  to  raise  such  a  picture  of  it  in  your  mind  as 
would  most  interest  your  readers.  But  you  must  remember  that 
farming  is  the  pride  of  Woburn,  and  that  farming  is  here  a  matter 
of  immense  importance,  involving  the  outlay  of  immense  capital, 
and  a  personal  interest  and  systematic  attention  which  seems  almost 
like  managing  the  affairs  of  state.  About  half  a  mile  from  the 
house  is  the  farmery — the  most  complete  group  of  farm  buildings, 
perhaps,  in  the  world,  where  the  incoming  harvest  make  a  figure 
only  equalled  by  the  accommodations  to  receive  it.  Besides  these 
there  are  mills  and  workshops  of  all  kinds,  and  on  the  outskirts  of 
the  park  a  whole  settlement  of  farm  cottages.  I  can  only  give  you 
an  idea  of  the  attention  bestowed  on  details,  and  the  interest  taken  in 
the  comforts  of  the  immediate  tenants  by  resorting  to  figures, 
and  telling  you  that  the  present  Duke  has  expended  £70,000 
(£350,000),  within  the  past  five  years,  in  the  farm  cottages  on  this 
estate,  which  are  model  cottages — combining  the  utmost  convenience 
and  comfort  for  dwellings  of  this  class,  with  so  much  of  architectu- 
ral taste  as  is  befitting  to  dwellings  of  this  size.  Of  course,  a  large 
part  of  this  estate  is  let  out  to  tenants,  but  still  a  large  tract  is  ma- 
naged by  the  Duke  himself,  who  pays  "more  than  400  laborers 
weekly  throughout  the  year.  The  farming  is  very  thorough,  and 
the  effects  of  draining  in  improving  the  land  have  been  very  strik- 
ing. Above  fifty  miles  of  drain  have  been  laid,  in  this  estate  alone, 
annually,  for  several  years  past. 

You  will  gather  from  this,  that  English  agriculture  is  not  made 
a  mere  recreation,  and  that  even  with  the  assistance  of  the  most 
competent  and  skilful  agents,  the  life  of  a  nobleman,  with  the  im- 
mense estate  and  the  agricultural  tastes  of  the  Duke  of  Bedford,  is 
one  of  constant  occupation  and  active  employment.    Besides  this 


WOBURN  ABBEY. 


537 


estate,  he  has  another  in  Cambridgeshire,  called  the  "Bedford 
Level" — a  vast  prairie  of  some  18,000  acres  reclaimed  from  the 
sea,  and  kept  dry  by  the  constant  action  of  steam  engines,  but  which 
is  very  productive,  and  is,  perhaps,  the  most  profitable  farm  land  in 
the  kingdom. 


vn. 


DROPMORE.— ENGLISH  RAILWAYS. — SOCIETY. 

September,  1850. 

DROPMORE  is  the  seat  of  Lady  Grenville,  and  has  been  cele- 
brated, for  some  time,  for  its  collection  of  rare  trees — especially 
evergreens.  It  is  in  the  neighborhood  of  Windsor,  and  I  passed  a 
morning  there  with  a  good  deal  of  interest. 

In  point  of  taste  and  beauty,  Dropmore  disappointed  me.  The 
site  is  flat,  the  soil  sandy  and  thin,  and  the  arrangement,  in  no  way 
remarkable.  The  mansion  is  not  so  fine  as  some  upon  the  Hudson, 
and  the  scenery  about  it,  does  not  rise  above  the  dead  level  of  a 
uniformity  rendered  less  insipid  by  abundant  plantations.  There  is, 
however,  a  wilderness  of  flower-garden  about  the  house,  in  which  I 
saw  scarlet  geraniums  and  garden  vases  enough  to  embellish  a 
whole  village.  The  effect,  however,  was  riant  and  gay  without  the 
sentiment  of  real  beauty. 

But  one  does  not  go  to  Norway  to  drink  sherbet,  and  Dropmore 
is  only  a  show  place  by  virtue  of  its  Pinetum.  This  is  its  collec- 
tion of  evergreen  trees,  and  particularly  of  the  pine  tribe — every 
species  that  will  grow  in  England  being  collected  in  this  one  place. 

Of  course,  in  a  scientific  collection  of  evergreen  trees,  there  are 
many  that  are  only  curious  to  the  botanist — many  that  are  only  valu- 
able for  timber,  and  many  that  are  almost  ugly  in  their  growth — or 
at  least  present  no  attractive  feature  to  the  general  eye.  But  there 
are  also,  in  this  Pinetum,  some  evergreens  of  such  rare  and  wonder- 
ful beauty,  growing  in  such  exquisite  perfection  of  development, 
that  they  effect  a  tree-lover  like  those  few  finest  Raphaels  and  Van- 


DROPMORE. 


dykes  in  the  great  galleries,  which  irradiate  whole  acres  of  com- 
mon art. 

The  oldest  and  finest  portion  of  the  Pinetum  occupies  a  lawn  of 
several  acres  near  the  house,  upon  which  are  assembled,  like  belles 
at  a  levee,  many  of  those  loveliest  of  evergreens — the  araucaria  or 
pine  of  Chili,  the  Douglass'  fir  of  California,  the  sacred  cedar  of 
India,  the  funcebral  cypress  of  Japan,  and  many  others. 

Perhaps  the  finest  tree  in  this  scene  is  the  Douglass'  fir  [Abies 
Douglassii).  It  is  sixty-two  feet  high,  and  has  grown  to  this  alti- 
tude in  twenty-one  years  from  the  seed.  It  resembles  most  the 
Norway  spruce,  as  one  occasionally  sees  the  finest  form  of  that  tree, 
having  that  graceful  downward  sweep  of  the  branches  and  feathering 
out  quite  down  to  the  turf— but  it  is  altogether  more  airy  in  form 
and  of  a  richer  and  darker  green  in  color.  At  this  size  it  is  the 
symbol  of  stately  elegance.  Here  is  also  a  specimen,  thirty  feet 
high,  of  Pinus  insignis,  the  richest  and  darkest  of  all  pines,  as  well 
as  Pinus  excelsa,  one  of  the  most  affectedly  pretty  evergreens — its 
silvery  leaves  resembling  those  of  the  white  pine,  but  drooping  lan- 
guidly— and  Pinus  macrocarpa  with  longer  leaves  than  those  of 
the  pinaster.* 

But  the  gem  of  the  collection  is  the  superb  Chili  pine  or  arau- 
caria— the  oldest,  I  think,  in  England,  or,  at  all  events,  the  finest. 
The  seed  was  presented  to  the  late  Lord  Grenville  by  William  IVth 
— who  had  some  of  the  first  gigantic  cones  of  this  tree  that  were 
imported.  This  specimen  is  now  thirty  feet  high,  perfectly  symme- 
trical, the  stem  as  straight  as  a  column — the  branches  disposed 
with  the  utmost  regularity,  and  the  lower  ones  drooping  and 
touching  the  ground  like  those  of  a  larch.  If  you  will  not  smile,  I 
will  tell  you  that  it  struck  me  that  the  expression  of  this  tree  is 
heroic — that  is,  it  looks  the  very  Mars  of  evergreens.  There  are  no 
slender  twigs,  no  small  branches — but  a  great  stem  with  branches 
like  a  colossal  bronze  candelabrum,  or  perhaps  the  whole  reminds 
one  more  of  some  gigantic,  dark  green  coral  than  a  living,  flexible 

*  Taxodium  sempervirens  is  here  seventeen  feet  high — rich  dark  green  in 
foliage  and  very  ornamental.  Cryptomeria  japonica,  nearly  as  large,  rather 
disappointed  me — keeping  its  brown  leaves  so  long  as  to  disfigure  the  plant 
Bomewhat.    Picea  nobilis  is  a  truly  beautiful  fir  tree. 


540 


LETTERS  FROM  ENGLAND. 


tree.  Yet  it  is  a  grand  object — in  its  richest  of  dark  green,  its  no- 
ble aspect,  and  its  powerful,  defiant  attitude.  This  is  quite  the  best 
specimen  that  I  have  seen,  and  stands  in  a  light,  sandy  soil  on  a 
gravelly  bottom — on  which  soil,  I  was  told,  it  only  grows  luxuriantly. 
I  do  not  know  how  well  this  fine  evergreen  will  succeed  at  home. 
It  is  now  on  tria1 — but  I  would  hint  to  those  who  may  fail  from 
planting  it  in  rich  damp  soil,  that  even  here,  it  completely  fails  in 
such  situations. 

After  leaving  what  I  should  call  the  Pinetum  in  full  dress — i.  e. 
in  the  highly-kept  part  of  the  grounds  near  the  house,  you  emerge 
gradually  into  a  tract  of  many  acres  of  nearly  level  surface,  which 
reminded  me  so  strongly  of  a  scattered  Jersey  pine  barren,  that  had 
it  not  been  for  tufts  and  patches  of  that  charming  little  plant  the 
heather  in  full  bloom,  growing  wild  on  all  sides,  I  might  have  fan- 
cied myself  in  the  neighborhood  of  Amboy.  The  whole  looked, 
and  much  of  it  was,  essentially  wild,  with  the  exception  of  carriage- 
drives  and  foot-paths  running  through  the  mingled  copse,  heath  and 
woodland.  But  I  was  soon  convinced  of  the  fact  that  it  was  not 
entirely  a  wild  growth,  by  being  shown,  here  and  there,  looking 
quite  as  if  they  had  come  up  by  chance,  rare  specimens  of  pines, 
firs,  cedars,  etc.,  from  all  parts  of  the  world,  and  presently  I  came 
upon  a  noble  avenue,  half  a  mile  long,  of  cedars  of  Lebanon  (a  tree 
to  which  I  always  feel  inclined  to  take  off  my  hat  as  I  would  do  to 
an  old  cathedral).  The  latter  have  been  planted  about  twenty-five 
years,  and  are  just  beginning  to  merge  the  beautiful  in  the  grand. 
Every  thing  in  the  shape  of  an  evergreen  seems  to  thrive  in  this 
light  sandy  soil,  and  I  suggest  to  the  owners  of  similar  waste  land 
in  the  middle  and  southern  States,  to  take  the  hint  from  this  part 
of  Dropmore — plant  here  and  there  in  the  openings  the  same  ever- 
green trees,  protecting  them  by  slight  paling  at  first,  and  gradually 
clearing  away  all  the  common  growth  as  they  advance  into  beauty. 
In  this  way  they  may  get  a  wonderfully  interesting  park — in  soil 
where  oaks  and  elms  would  never  grow — at  a  very  trifling  outlay. 

I  cannot  dismiss  Dropmore  without  mentioning  a  superb  hedge 
of  Portugal  laurel,  thirty-one  feet  high — and  the  beautiful  "  Burnam 
beeches,"  almost  as  fine  as  one  ever  sees  in  America,  that  I  passed 
on  the  way  back  te  the  railway  station. 


ENGLISH  RAILWAYS. 


541 


The  last  word  reminds  me  that  I  must  say  a  word  or  two  here, 
about  the  English  railways.  In  point  of  speed  I  think  their  reputa- 
tion outruns  the  fact.  I  did  not  find  their  average  (with  the  excep- 
tion of  the  road  between  Liverpool  and  London)  much  above  that 
of  our  best  northern  and  eastern  roads.  They  make,  for  instance, 
hardly  twenty  miles  an  hour  with  the  ordinary  trains,  and  about 
thirty-six  miles  an  hour  with  the  express  trains.  But  the  perfect 
order  and  system  with  which  they  are  managed;  the  obliging 
civility  of  all  persons  in  the  employment  of  the  companies  to  travel- 
lers, and  the  quietness  with  which  the  business  of  the  road  is  carried 
on,  strikes  an  American  very  strongly.  For  example,  suppose  you 
are  on  a  railroad  at  home.  You  are  about  to  approach  a  small 
town,  where  you  may  leave  and  take  up,  perhaps,  twenty  passen- 
gers. As  soon  as  the  town  is  in  sight,  the  engine  or  its  whistle  be- 
gins to  scream  out — the  bell  rings — the  steam  whizzes — and  the 
train  stops.  Out  hurry  the  way  passengers,  in  rush  the  new  comers. 
Again  the  bell  rings,  the  steam  whkzes,  and  with  a  noise  something 
between  a  screech  and  a  yell,  but  more  infernal  than  either — a 
noise  that  deafens  the  old  ladies,  delights  the  boys,  and  frightens  all 
the  horses,  off  rushes  the  train — whizzing  and  yelling  over  a  mile 
or  two  more  of  the  country,  before  it  takes  breath  for  the  like  pro- 
cess at  the  next  station. 

In  an  English  railway  you  seldom  hear  the  scream  of  the  steam 
whistle  at  all.  It  is  not  considered  part  of  the  business  of  the  en- 
gineer to  disturb  the  peace  of  the  whole  neighborhood,  and  inform 
them  that  he  and  the  train  are  coming.  The  guard  at  the  station 
notices  the  train  when  it  first  comes  in  sight.  He  immediately  rings 
a  hand-bell,  just  loud  enough  to  warn  the  passengers  in  the  station, 
to  get  ready.  The  train  arrives — no  yelling,  screaming — or  whizzing 
— possibly  a  gentle  letting  off  of  the  steam — quite  a  necessary 
thing — not  at  all  for  effect.  The  passengers  get  out,  and  others  get 
in,  and  are  all  carefully  seated  by  the  aforesaid  guard  or  guards. 
When  this  is  all  done,  the  guard  of  the  station  gives  a  tinkle  or  two 
with  his  hand-bell  again,  to  signify  to  the  conductor  that  all  is 
ready,  and  off  the  train  darts,  as  quietly  as  if  it  knew  screaming  to 
be  a  thing  not  tolerated  in  good  society.  But  the  difference  is  na- 
tional after  all.    John  Bull  says  in  his  railroads,  as  in  every  thing 


542 


LETTERS  FROM  ENGLAND. 


else,  "  steady — all  right."  Brother  Jonathan,  "  clear  the  coast — gc 
ahead !"  Still,  as  our  most  philosophical  writer  has  said,  it  is  only- 
boys  and  savages  who  scream — men  learn  to  control  themselves — ■ 
we  hope  to  see  the  time  when  our  people  shall  find  out  the  advan- 
tages of  possessing  power  without  making  a  noise  about  it. 

If  we  may  take  a  lesson  from  the  English  in  the  management  of 
railways,  they  might  learn  vastly  more  from  us  in  the  accommodation 
of  passengers.  What  are  called  "  first-class  carriages"  on  the  Eng- 
lish rails,  are  thoroughly  comfortable,  in  the  English  sense  of  the 
word.  They  have  seats  for  six — each  double-cushioned,  padded,  and 
set-off  from  the  rest,  like  the  easy  chair  of  an  alderman,  in  which 
you  can  intrench  yourself  and  imagine  that  the  world  was  made 
for  you  alone.  But  only  a  small  part  of  the  travel  in  England  is  in 
first-class  cars,  for  it  is  a  luxury  that  must  be  paid  for  in  hard  gold 
— costing  four  or  five  times  as  much  as  the  most  comfortable  travel- 
ling by  railroad  in  the  United  States.  And  the  second-class  cars — 
in  which  the  great  majority  of  the  British  people  really  travel — 
what  are  they  ?  Neat  boxes,  in  which  you  may  sit  down  on  a  per- 
fectly smooth  board,  and  find  out  all  the  softness  that  lies  in  the 
grain  of  deal  or  good  English  oak — for  they  are  guiltless  of  all 
cushions.  Our  neighbors  of  this  side  of  the  Atlantic  have  been  so 
long  accustomed  to  catering  for  the  upper  class  in  this  country,  that 
the  fact  that  the  railroad  is  the  most  democratic  institution  of  the 
day,  has  not  yet  dawned  upon  them  in  all  its  breadth.  An  American 
rail-car,  built  to  carry  a  large  number  in  luxurious  comfort,  at  a 
price  that  seems  fabulous  in  England,  pays  better  profits  by  the  im- 
mense travel  it  begets,  than  the  ill-devised  first  and  second-class  car- 
riages of  the  English  railways. 

But  what  finish  and  nicety  in  these  English  roads !  The  grades 
all  covered  with  turf,  kept  as  nice  as  a  lawn,  quite  down  to  the  rails, 
and  the  divisions  between  the  road  and  the  lands  adjoining,  made 
by  nicely  trimmed  hedges.  The  larger  stations  are  erected  in  so  ex- 
pensive and  solid  a  manner  as  to  have  greatly  impaired  the  profits 
of  some  of  the  roads.  But  the  smaller  ones  are  almost  always  built 
in  the  style  of  the  cottage  ornee — and,  indeed,  are  some  of  the  pret- 
tiest and  most  picturesque  rural  buildings  that  I  have  seen  in  Eng- 
land.   They  all  have  their  little  flower-gardens,  generally  a  parterre 


SOCIETY. 


543 


lying  open  quite  to  the  edge  of  the  rail,  and  looking  like  a  gay  ear- 
pet  thrown  on  the  green  sward.  If  the  English  are  an  essentially 
common  sense  people,  they,  at  least,  have  a  love  of  flowers  in  all 
places,  that  has  something  quite  romantic  in  it. 

I  reached  London  only  to  leave  it  again  in  another  direction,  to 

accept  a  kind  invitation  to  the  country  house  of  Mrs.   ,  the 

distinguished  authoress  of  some  charming  works  of  fiction — which 
are  widely  known  in  my  country,  though  I  shall  not  transgress  Eng- 
lish propriety  by  giving  you  a  clew  to  her  real  name. 

This  place  reminded  me  of  home  more  than  any  that  I  have 
seen  in  England ;  not,  indeed,  of  my  own  home  in  the  Hudson 
highlands,  with  its  bold  river  and  mountain  scenery,  but  of  the  gen- 
eral features  of  American  cultivated  landscape.  The  house,  which 
is  not  unlike  a  country  house  of  good  size  with  us,  is  situated  on  a 
hill  which  rises  gently,  but  so  high  above  the  surrounding  country, 
as  to  give  a  wide  panorama  of  field  and  woodland,  such  as  one  sees 
from  a  height  about  Boston  and  Philadelphia.  The  approach,  and 
part  of  the  grounds,  are  bordered  with  plantations  of  forest-trees, 
which,  though  all  planted,  have  been  left  to  themselves  so  much  as 
to  look  quite  like  our  native  after-growth  at  home.  The  place,  too, 
has  not  the  thorough  full-dress  air  of  the  great  English  country 
places  where  I  have  been  staying  lately,  and,  both  in  extent  and 
keeping,  is  more  like  a  residence  on  the  Hudson.  The  house  sits 
down  quite  on  a  level  with  the  ground,  however,  so  that  you  can 
step  out  of  the  drawing-room  on  the  soft  grass,  and  stroll  to  yonder 
bright  flower-garden,  grouped  round  the  fountain  dancing  in  the 
sunshine,  as  if  you  were  only  going  out  of  one  room  into  another. 
In  the  library  is  a  great  bay-window,  and  a  spacious  fire-place  set  in 
a  deep  recess  lined  with  books,  suggesting  warmth  and  comfort  at 
once,  to  both  mind  and  body ;  and  the  air  of  the  whole  place,  joined 
to  the  unaffected  and  cordial  welcome  from  many  kind  voices,  gave 
me  a  feeling  of  maladie  du  pays  that  I  had  not  felt  before  in  England. 

There  are  no  especial  wonders  of  park  or  palace  here,  though 
there  is  a  great  deal  of  quiet  beauty,  and  as  I  have,  perhaps,  given 
you  almost  a  surfeit  of  great  places  lately,  you  will  not  regret  it.  I 
look  out  of  the  windows,  however,  and  see  in  abundance  here,  as 
every  where,  those  two  evergreens  that  enrich  with  their  broad 


544 


LETTERS  FROM  ENGLAND. 


glossy  leaves  all  English  gardens  and  pleasure-grounds,  and  which 
I  never  cease  to  reproach  for  their  monarchical  habits — since  they 
so  obstinately  refuse  to  be  naturalized  in  our  republic — I  mean  the 
English  and  Portugal  laurels.  I  would  give  all  the  hot-house  plants 
that  Yankee  glass  covers,  to  have  these  two  evergreens  as  much  at 
home  in  our  pleasure-grounds  as  they  are  every  where  in  England. 

There  are  other  guests  in  the  house — Sir  Charles  M  , 

Lady  P.,  some  Irish  ladies  without  titles  (but  so  rich  in  natural  gifts 
as  to  make  one  feel  the  poverty  of  mere  rank),  and  a  charming  fam- 
ily of  grown  up  daughters.  It  would  be  difficult,  perhaps,  to  have 
a  better  opportunity  to  judge  of  the  life  of  the  educated  middle 
class  of  this  country,  than  in  such  homes  as  this.  And  what  im- 
pressions do  such  examples  make  upon  my  mind,  you  will  ask  ?  I 
will  tell  you  (not  without  remembering  how  many  fair  young  read- 
ers you  have  at  home).  The  young  English  woman  is  less  conspic- 
uously accomplished  than  our  young  women  of  the  same  position  in 
America.  There  is,  perhaps,  a  little  less  of  that  je  ne  sais  quoi — 
that  nameless  grace  which  captivates  at  first  sight — than  with  us, 
but  a  better  and  more  solid  education,  more  disciplined  minds,  and 
above  all,  more  common  sense.  In  the  whole  art  of  conversation, 
including  all  the  topics  of  the  day,  with  so  much  of  politics  as  makes 
a  woman  really  a  companion  for  an  intelligent  -man  in  his  serious 
thoughts,  in  histoiy,  language,  and  practical  knowledge  of  the  duties 
of  social  and  domestic  life,  the  English  women  have,  I  imagine,  few 
superiors.  But  what,  perhaps,  would  strike  one  of  our  young  women 
most,  in  English  society,  would  be  the  thorough  cultivation  and  re- 
finement that  exist  here,  along  with  the  absence  of  all  false  delicacy. 
The  fondness  of  English  women  (even  in  the  highest  rank)  for  out- 
of-door  life,  horses,  dogs,  fine  cattle,  animals  of  all  kinds, — for  their 
grounds,  and  in  short  every  thing  that  belongs  to  their  homes — 
their  real,  unaffected  knowledge  of,  and  pleasure  in  these  things,  and 
the  unreserved  way  in  which  they  talk  about  them,  would  startle 
some  of  my  young  friends  at  home,  who  are  educated  in  the  fash- 
ionable boarding-school  of  Madame    to  consider  all  such 

things  "  vulgar,"  and  "  unlady-like."  I  accompanied  the  younger 
members  of  the  family  here  this  morning,  in  an  exploration  of  the 
mysteries  of  the  place.    No  sooner  did  we  make  our  appearance  out 


SOCIETY.  545 

of  doors,  than  we  were  saluted  by  dogs  of  all  degrees,  and  each  had 
the  honor  of  an  interview  and  personal  reception,  which  seemed  to 
be  productive  of  pleasure  on  both  sides.  Then  some  of  the  horses 
were  brought  out  of  the  stable,  and  a  parley  took  place  between 
them  and  their  fair  mistresses ;  some  favorite  cows  were  to  be  petted 
and  looked  after,  and  their  good  points  were  descanted  on  with 
knowledge  and  discrimination ;  and  there  was  the  basse  cour,  with 
its  various  population,  all  discussed  and  shown  with  such  lively,  un- 
affected interest,  that  I  soon  saw  my  fair  companions  were  "  born  to 
love  pigs  and  chickens."  I  have  said  nothing  about  the  garden,  be- 
cause you  know  that  it  is  especially  the  lady's  province  here.  An 
English  woman  with  no  taste  for  gardening,  would  be  as  great  a 
marvel  as  an  angel  without  wings.  And  now,  were  these  fresh  look- 
ing girls,  who  have  so  thoroughly  entered  into  these  rustic  enjoy- 
ments, mere  country  lasses  and  dairy  maids  ?  By  no  means.  They 
will  converse  with  you  in  three  or  four  languages ;  are  thoroughly 
well-grounded  in  modern  literature ;  sketch  from  nature  with  the 
ease  of  professional  artists,  and  will  sit  down  to  the  piano-forte  and 
give  you  an  old  ballad,  or  the  finest  German  or  Italian  music,  as 
your  taste  may  dictate.  And  yet  many  of  my  young  countrywomen 
of  their  age,  whose  education — wholly  intended  for  the  drawing- 
room — is  far  below  what  I  have  described,  would  have  half  fainted 
with  terror,  and  half  blushed  with  false  delicacy,  twenty  times  in  the 
course  of  the  morning,  with  the  discussions  of  the  farm-yard,  meadow 
and  stables,  which  properly  belong  to  a  wholesome  country  life,  and 
are  not  in  the  slightest  degree  at  variance  with  real  delicacy  and  re- 
finement. I  very  well  know  that  there  are  many  sensibly  educated 
young  women  at  home,  who  have  the  same  breadth  of  cultivation, 
and  the  same  variety  of  resources,  that  make  the  English  women 
such  truly  agreeable  companions ;  but  alas,  I  also  know  that  there 
are  many  whose  beau  ideal  is  bounded  by  a  circle  that  contains  the 
latest  fashionable  dance  for  the  feet,  the  latest  fashionable  novel  for 
the  head,  and  the  latest  fashionable  fancy-work  for  the  fingers. 

If  I  have  unconsciously  run  into  something  like  a  sermon,  it  is 
from  the  feeling  that  among  my  own  lovely  countrywomen  is  to 
be  found  the  ground-work  of  the  most  perfectly  attractive  feminine 
character  in  the  world.    But  of  late,  their  education  has  been  a  little 
35 


546 


LETTERS  FROM  ENGLAND. 


vitiated  by  the  introduction  of  the  flimsiest  points  cf  French  social 
requirements — rather  than  the  more  solid  and  estimable  qualities 
which  belong  to  English  domestic  life.  The  best  social  development 
in  America  will,  doubtless,  finally  result  from  an  internal  movement 
springing  from  the  very  bosom  of  our  institutions  ;  but  before  that 
can  happen,  a  great  many  traits  and  refinements  will  necessarily  be 
borrowed  from  the  old  world — and  the  larger  interests,  healthier 
home  tastes,  and  more  thorough  education  of  English  women,  seem 
to  me  hardly  rated  so  highly  by  us  as  they  deserve.  Go  to  Paris, 
if  you  will,  to  see  the  most  perfect  taste  in  dress,  and  the  finest 
charm  of  merely  external  manners,  but  mate  the  acquaintance  of 
English  women  if  you  wish  to  get  a  high  idea  of  feminine  character 
as  it  should  be,  to  command  your  sincerest  and  most  lasting  admi- 
ration and  respect. 


vrn. 


THE  LONDON  PARKS. 

September,  1850. 

MY  DEAR  SIR :— If  my  English  letters  have  told  you  mostly 
of  country  places,  and  country  life,  it  is  not  that  I  have  been 
insensible  to  sight-seeing  in  town.  London  is  a  great  world  in  it- 
self. Ink  enough  has,  however,  already  been  expended  upon  it  to 
fill  the  Grand  Canal,  and  still  it  is  a  city  which  no  one  can  under- 
stand without  seeing  it.  Its  vastness,  its  grave  aspect  of  business, 
the  grandeur  of  some  parts,  the  poverty  of  others,  the  air  of  order, 
and  the  taint  of  smoke,  that  pervade  it  every  where,  are  its  great 
features.  To  an  American  eye,  accustomed  to  the  clear,  pure,  trans- 
atlantic atmosphere,  there  is,  at  first,  something  really  repulsive  in 
the  black  and  dingy  look  of  almost  all  buildings,  whether  new  or 
old  (not  painted  within  the  last  month).  In  some  of  the  oldest, 
like  Westminster  Abbey,  it  is  an  absolute  covering  of  dirty  soot. 
That  hoary  look  of  age  which  belongs  to  a  time-honored  building, 
and  which  mellows  and  softens  all  its  lines  and  forms,  is  as  delicious 
to  the  sense  of  sight  as  the  tone  of  old  pictures,  or  the  hue  of  old 
wine.  But  there  is  none  of  this  in  the  antiquity  of  London.  You 
are  repelled  by  the  sooty  exterior  of  all  the  old  facades,  as  you  would 
be  by  that  of  a  chimney-sweep  who  has  made  the  circuit  of  fifty 
flues  in  a  morning,  and  whose  outer  man  would  almost  defy  an  en- 
tire hydropathic  institution. 

If  I  have  shown  you  the  dark  side  of  the  picture  of  the  great 
Metropolis,  first,  let  me  hasten  to  present  you  with  some  of  its  lights, 


548 


LETTERS  FROM  ENGLAND. 


which  made  a  much  stronger  impression  upon  me.  I  mean  the 
grand  and  beautiful  parks  of  London. 

If  every  thing  one  sees  in  England  leads  one  to  the  conviction 
that  the  English  do  not,  like  the  French  and  Germans,  possess  the 
genius  of  high  art,  there  is  no  denying  that  they  far  surpass  all 
other  nations  in  a  profound  sentiment  of  nature.  Take,  for  exam- 
ple, the  "West  end  of  London,  and  what  do  you  see  there  ?  Mag- 
nificent palaces,  enormous  piles  of  dwellings,  in  the  shape  of  "  ter- 
races," "  squares,"  and  "  places  " — the  same  costly  town  architecture 
that  you  find  every  where  in  the  better  portions  of  populous  and 
wealthy  capitals.  But  if  you  ask  me  what  is  the  peculiar  and  dis- 
tinguishing luxury  of  this  part  of  London,  I  answer,  in  its  holding 
the  country  in  its  lap.  In  the  midst  of  London  lie,  in  an  almost 
connected  series,  the  great  parks.  Hyde  Park,  Regent's  Park,  St. 
James's  and  Green  Parks.  These  names  are  almost  as  familiar  to 
you  as  the  Battery  and  Washington  Square,  and  I  fear  you  labor 
under  the  delusion  that  the  former  are  only  an  enlarged  edition  of 
the  latter.  Believe  me,  you  have  fallen  into  as  great  an  error  as  if 
you  took  the  "  Brick  meeting-house  "  for  a  suggestion  of  St.  Peter's. 
The  London  parks  are  actually  like  districts  of  open  country — mead- 
ows and  fields,  country  estates,  lakes  and  streams,  gardens  and 
shrubberies,  with  as  much  variety  as  if  you  were  in  the  heart  of 
Cambridgeshire,  and  as  much  seclusion  in  some  parts,  at  certain 
hours,  as  if  you  were  on  a  farm  in  the  interior  of  Pennsylvania. 
And  the  whole  is  laid  out  and  treated,  in  the  main,  with  a  broad 
and  noble  feeling  of  natural  beauty,  quite  the  reverse  of  what  you 
see  in  the  public  parks  of  the  continental  cities.  This  makes  these 
parks  doubly  refreshing  to  citizens  tired  of  straight  fines  and  for- 
mal streets,  while  the  contrast  heightens  the  natural  charm.  Unac- 
customed to  this  breadth  of  imitation  of  nature — this  creating  a 
piece  of  wide-spread  country  large  enough  to  shut  out  for  the  time 
all  trace  of  the  houses,  though  actually  in  the  midst  of  a  city,  an 
American  is  always  inclined  to  believe  (notwithstanding  the  abun- 
dance of  evidence  to  the  contrary)  that  the  London  parks  are  a  bit 
of  the  native  country,  surprised  and  fairly  taken  prisoner  by  the 
outstretched  arms  of  this  giant  of  modern  cities. 

St.  James's  Park  and  Green  Park  are  enormous  pieces  of  real 


THE  LONDON  PARKS. 


549 


pleasure-ground  scenery — with  broad  glades  of  turf,  noble  trees, 
rich  masses  of  shrubbery  and  flowering  plants — lakes  filled  with 
rare  water-fowl,  and  the  proper  surroundings,  in  fact,  to  two  royal 
palaces  and  the  finest  private  houses  in  London  ;  but  still,  all  open 
to  the  enjoyment  of  hundreds  of  thousands  daily.  You  look  out 
upon  the  forest  of  verdure  in  Green  Park,  as  you  sit  in  the  windows 
of  our  present  minister's  fine  mansion  in  Piccadilly,  astonished  at 
the  breadth  and  beauty  of  the  green  landscape,  which  seems  to  you 
more  like  a  glimpse  into  one  of  the  loveliest  pleasure-grounds  on 
the  Hudson,  than  the  belongings  of  the  great  Metropolis. 

But  the  pride  of  London  is  in  Hyde  Park  and  Kensington 
Gardens,  which,  together,  contain  nearly  eight  hundred  acres,  so 
that  you  have  to  make  a  circuit  of  nearly  seven  miles  to  go  over 
the  entire  circumference.  If  you  enter  Hyde  Park  between  seven 
and  eight  in  the  morning,  when  all  the  world  of  fashion  is  asleep, 
you  will  fancy,  after  you  have  left  the  great  gateways  and  the  fine  , 
collosal  statue  of  Achilles  far  enough  behind  you  to  be  quite  out  of 
sight,  that  you  have  made  a  mistake  and  strolled  out  into  the  coun- 
try unawares.  Scarcely  a  person  is  to  be  seen  at  this  time  of  day, 
unless  it  be  some  lonely  foot-passenger,  who  looks  as  if  he  had  lost 
his  way,  or  his  wits,  at  this  early  hour.  But  you  see  broad  grass 
meadows  with  scattered  groups  of  trees,  not  at  all  unlike  what  you 
remember  on  the  smooth  banks  of  the  Connecticut,  and  your  im- 
pression that  you  have  got  astray  and  quite  out  of  the  reach  of  the 
Metropolis,  is  confirmed  by  hearing  the  tinkle  of  sheep-bells  and 
seeing  flocks  of  these  and  other  pastoral  creatures,  feeding  quietly 
on  the  short  turf  of  the  secluded  portions  of  the  park.  You  walk 
on  till  you  are  quite  weary,  without  finding  the  end  of  the  matter 
— for  Kensington  Gardens,  which  is  only  another  and  a  larger  park, 
is  but  the  continuation  of  Hyde  Park — and  you  turn  back  in  a  sort 
of  bewildered  astonishment  at  the  vastness  and  wealth  of  a  city 
which  can  afford  such  an  illimitable  space  for  the  pleasure  of  air 
and  exercise  of  its  inhabitants. 

That  is  Hyde  Park  in  dishabille.  Now  go  in  again  with  me  in 
the  afternoon,  any  time  during  the  London  season,  and  you  shall 
see  the  same  place  in  full  dress,  and  so  altered  and  animated  by 


550 


LETTERS  FROM  ENGLAND. 


the  dramatis  personce,  that  you  will  hardly  identify  it  as  the  locale 
of  the  solitary  country  ramble  you  took  in  the  morning. 

It  is  half  past  four  in  the  afternoon,  and  the  fashionable  world 
(who  dine  at  seven  all  over  England)  is  now  taking  its  morning  air- 
ing. If  you  will  sit  down  on  one  of  these  solid-looking  seats  under 
the  shadow  of  this  large  elm,  you  will  see  such  a  display  of  equi- 
page, pass  you  in  the  cousre  of  a  single  hour,  as  no  other  part  of  the 
world  can  parallel.  This  broad,  well-macadamized  carriage-drive, 
which  makes  a  circuit  of  some  four  or  five  miles  in  Hyde  Park,  is, 
at  this  moment,  fairly  filled  with  private  carriages  of  all  degrees. 
Here  are  heavy  coaches  and  four,  with  postilions  and  footmen,  and 
massive  carnages  emblazoned  with  family  crests  and  gay  with  all 
the  brilliancy  of  gold  and  crimson  liveries  ;  yonder  superb  barouche 
with  eight  spirited  horses  and  numerous  outriders,  is  the  royal 
equipage,  and  as  you  lean  forward  to  catch  a  glimpse  of  the  sov- 
ereign, the  close  coach  of  the  hero  of  Waterloo,  the  servants  with 
cockades  in  their  hats,  dashes  past  you  the  other  way  at  a  rate  so 
rapid  that  you  doubt  if  he  who  rides  within,  is  out  merely  for  an 
airing.  Yonder  tasteful  turn-out  with  liveries  of  a  peculiar  delicate 
mulberry,  with  only  a  single  tall  figure  in  the  coach,  is  the  Duke  of 
Devonshire's.  Here  is  the  carriage  of  one  of  the  foreign  ambassa- 
dors, less  showy  and  lighter  than  the  English  vehicles,  and  that 
pretty  phaeton  drawn  by  two  beautiful  blood  horses,  is,  you  see, 
driven  by  a  woman  of  extraordinary  beauty,  with  extraordinary 
skill.  She  is  quite  alone,  and  behind  her  sits  a  footman  with  his 
arms  folded,  his  face  as  grave  and  solemn  as  stones  that  have  ser- 
mons in  them.  As  you  express  your  surprise  at  the  air  of  conscious 
"  grace  with  which  the  lady  drives,"  your  London  friend  quietly  re- 
marks, "  Yes,  but  she  is  not  a  lady."  Unceasingly  the  carriages 
roll  by,  and  you  are  less  astonished  at  the  numberless  superb  equi- 
pages or  the  beauty  of  the  horses,  than  at  the  old-world  air  of  the 
footmen  in  gold  and  silver  lace,  gaudy  liveries,  spotless  linen  and 
snowy  silk  stockings.  Some  of  the  grand  old  coachmen  in  full- 
powdered  wigs,  decked  in  all  the  glory  of  laced  coats  and  silken 
oalves,  held  the  ribbons  with  such  a  conscisus  air  of  imposing 
grandeur  that  I  willingly  accepted  them  as  the  tree-pceonias,  the 
most  blooming  blossoms  of  this  parterre  of  equipage.    It  seemed 


THE  LONDON  PARKS. 


551 


to  me  that  there  may  be  something  comfortable  in  thus  hanging  all 
the  trappings  of  station  on  the  backs  of  coachmen  and  footmen,  if 
one  must  be  bothered  with  such  things — so  that  one  may  lean  back 
quietly  in  plain  clothes  in  the  well-stuffed  seat  of  his  private 
carriage. 

But  do  not  let  us  loiter  away  all  our  time  in  a  single  scene  in 
Hyde  Park.  A  few  steps  farther  on  is  Rotten  Row  (rather  an  odd 
name  for  an  elegant  place),  the  chosen  arena  of  fashionable  eques- 
trians. The  English  know  too  well  the  pleasures  of  riding,  to  gal- 
lop on  horseback  over  hard  pavements,  and  Rotten  Row  is  a  soft 
circle  of  a  couple  of  miles,  in  the  park,  railed  off  for  this  purpose, 
where  your  horse's  feet  have  an  elastic  surface  to  travel  over.  Hun- 
dreds of  fair  equestrians,  with  fathers,  brothers,  or  friends,  for  com- 
panions, are  here  enjoying  a  more  lively  and  spirited  exercise,  than 
the  languid  inmates  of  the  carriages  we  have  just  left  behind  us. 
The  English  women  rise  in  the  saddle,  like  male  riders,  and  at  first 
sight  they  look  awkwardly  and  less  graceful  to  our  eyes — but  you 
soon  see  that  they  also  sit  more  firmly  and  ride  more  boldly,  than 
ladies  on  our  side  of  the  water. 

To  stand  by  and  see  others  ride,  seems  to  me  to  be  always  too 
tantalizing  to  be  long  endured  as  a  pastime — even  where  the  scene 
is  as  full  of  novelty  and  variety  as  this.  Let  us  go  on,  therefore. 
This  beautiful  stream  of  water,  which  would  be  called  a  pretty 
"  creek  "  at  home,  is  the  Serpentine  River,  which  has  been  made  to 
meander  gracefully  through  Hyde  Park,  and  wonderfully  does  its 
bright  waters  enhance  the  beauty  of  the  verdure  and  the  charm  of 
the  whole  landscape.  As  we  stand  on  the  bridge,  and  look  up  and 
down  the  river,  amid  the  rich  groves  and  across  the  green  lawns,  the 
city  wholly  shut  out  by  groves  and  plantations,  how  finely  one  feels 
the  contrast  of  art  and  nature  to  be  realized  here. 

That  delicious  band  of  music  which  you  hear  now,  is  in  Ken- 
sington Gardens,  and  only  a  belt  of  trees  and  yonder  iron  gate,  sepa- 
rate the  latter  from  Hyde  Park.  Let  us  join  the  crowd  of  persons 
of  all  ages,  collected  in  the  great  walk,  under  the  shade  of  gigantic 
elm  trees,  to  hear  the  music.  It  is  a  well-known  air  of  Donizetti's, 
and  as  your  eye  glances  over  the  company,  perhaps  some  five  or  six 
thousand  persons,  who  form  the  charmingly  grouped,  out-of-door 


552 


LETTERS  FROM  ENGLAND. 


audience  (for  the  afternoon  is  a  bright  one),  and  as  you  see  the  ra- 
diant pleasure-sparkle  in  a  thousand  happy  faces,  young  and  old, 
who  are  here  enjoying  a  little  pleasant  mingling  of  heaven  and 
earth  in  an  innocent  manner,  you  cannot  but  be  struck  with  the 
fact  that,  if  there  is  a  duty  belonging  to  good  governments,  next  to 
protecting  the  lives  and  property  of  the  people,  it  is  that  of  provid 
ing  public  parks  for  the  pent-up  inhabitants  of  cities. 

"  Imperial  Kensington "  is  not  only  more  spacious  and  grand 
than  Hyde  Park,  but  it  has  a  certain  antique  stateliness,  which 
touches  my  fancy  and  pleases  me  more.  The  trees  are  larger  and 
more  grove-like,  and  the  broad  glades  of  soft  green  turf  are  of  a 
darker  and  richer  green,  and  invite  you  to  a  more  private  and  in- 
timate confidence  than  any  portions  of  Hyde  Park.  The  grand 
avenue  of  elms  at  the  farther  part  of  Kensington  Gardens,  coming 
suddenly  into  it  from  the  farther  Bayswater  Gate,  is  one  of  the 
noblest  geometric  groves  in  any  city,  and  was  laid  out  and  planted, 
I  believe,  in  King  William's  time.  An  avenue  some  hundreds  of 
years  old,  is  always  majestic  and  venerable,  and  when  it  adds  great 
extent  and  fine  keeping,  like  this,  is  really  a  grand  thing.  And  yet, 
perhaps,  not  one  American  in  fifty  that  visits  Hyde  Park,  ever  gets 
far  enough  into  the  depths  of  its  enjoyment  to  explore  this  avenue 
in  Kensington  Gardens. 

No  carriages  or  horses  are  permitted  in  Kensington  Gardens, 
but  its  broad  glades  and  shadowy  lawns  are  sacred  to  pedestrians, 
and  are  especially  the  gambol-fields  of  thousands  of  lovely  children, 
who,  attended  by  their  nurses,  make  a  kind  of  infant  Arcadia  of  these 
solemn  old  groves  of  the  monarch  of  Dutch  tastes.  Even  the  dingy 
old  brick  Palace  of  Kensington,  which  overlooks  one  side  of  the 
great  lawn,  cannot  chase  away  the  bright  dimples  from  the  rosy 
faces  of  the  charming  children  one  sees  here,  and  the  symbols  of 
natural  aristocracy — beauty  and  intelligence — set  upon  these  young 
faces,  were  to  my  eyes  a  far  more  agreeable  study  than  those  of 
accident,  birth,  and  fortune,  which  are  so  gaudily  blazoned  forth  in 
Hyde  Park. 

My  London  friend,  who  evidently  enjoys  our  astonishment  at 
the  vastness  of  the  London  Parks,  and  the  apparent  display  and 
real  enjoyment  they  minister  to,  calculates  that  not  less  than  &P,000 


THE  LONDON  PARKS. 


553 


persons  h^ve  been  out,  on  foot,  on  horseback,  or  in  carriages,  this 
afternoon,  att&adds  that  upon  review  days,  or  other  occasions  of 
particular  brilliancy,  he  has  known  200,000  persons  to  be  in  Hyde 
Park  and  Kensington  Gardens  at  once. 

You  may  be  weary  of  parks  to-day,  but  I  shall  not  allow  you 
to  escape  me  without  a  glance  at  Regent's  Park,  another  link  in  the 
rural  scenery  of  this  part  of  London.  Yes,  here  are  three  hundred 
and  thirty-six  acres  more  of  lawn,  ornamental  plantations,  drives 
and  carriage  roads.  Regent's  Park  has  a  younger  look  than  any  of 
the  others  in  the  West  End  of  London,  having  only  been  planted 
about  twenty-five  or  thirty  years — but  it  is  a  beautiful  surface,  con- 
taining a  great  variety  of  different  scenes  within  itself.  Here  are, 
for  instance,  the  Royal  Botanic  Garden,  with  its  rich  collection  of 
plants  and  its  beautiful  flower-shows,  which  I  have  already  described 
to  you;  and  the  Zoological  Garden,  some  twenty  acres  in  extent, 
where  you  may  see  almost  every  living  animal  as  nearly  as  possible 
in  the  same  circumstances  as  in  its  native  country.  Over  the  lawns 
walk  the  giraffe  or  cameleopard,  led  by  Arabs  in  oriental  costume ; 
among  the  leafy  avenues  you  see  elephants  waddling  along,  with 
loads  of  laughing,  half-frightened  children  on  their  backs ;  down  in  a 
deep  pool  of  water  you  peer  upon  the  sluggish  hippopotamus  ;  you 
gaze  at  the  soft  eyes  of  the  gazelle  as  she  feeds  in  her  little  private 
paddock,  and  you  feed  the  black  swans  that  are  floating  along,  with 
innumerable  other  rare  aquatic  birds,  upon  the  surface  of  glassy  lakes 
of  fresh  water.  And  the  "  Zoological "  is  just  as  full  of  people  as  Hyde 
Park,  though  of  a  totally  different  appearance — many  students  in 
natural  history,  some  fashionable  loungers,  chiefly  women,  more  cu- 
rious strangers,  and  most  of  all,  boys  and  girls,  feeding  their  juvenile 
appetite  for  the  marvellous,  by  seeing  the  less  astonished  animals 
fed. 

And  whose  are  those  pretty  country  residences  that  you  see  in 
the  very  midst  of  another  part  of  Regent's  Park — beautiful  Italian 
villas  and  ornamental  cottages,  embowered  in  trees  of  their  own, 
and  only  divided  from  the  open  park  by  a  light  railing  and  belts  of 
shrubbery  ?  These  are  the  villas  of  certain  favored  nobles,  who  have 
at  large  cost  realized,  as  you  see,  the  perfection  of  a  residence  in 
town,  viz.,  a  country-house  in  the  midst  of  a  great  park,  which  is 


554 


LETTERS  FROM  ENGLAND. 


itself  in  the  midst  of  a  great  city.  In  these  favored  sites  the  owners 
have  the  luxury  of  quiet  and  rural  surroundings,  usually  confined  to 
the  country,  with  the  whole  of  the  great  world  of  May  Fair  and 
polities  within  ten  or  twenty  minutes'  walk. 

And  now,  having  been  through  more  than  a  thousand  acres  of 
park  scenery,  and  witnessed  the  enjoyments  of  tens  of  thousands  of 
all  classes,  to  whom  these  parks  are  open  from  sunrise  to  nine  o'clock 
at  night,  you  will  naturally  ask  me  if  these  luxuries  are  wholly  con- 
fined to  the  West  End  of  London.  By  no  means.  In  almost  all 
parts  of  London  are  "  squares " — open  places  of  eight  or  ten  acres, 
filled  with  trees,  shrubs,  grass,  and  fountains — like  what  we  call 
"  parks "  in  our  cities  at  home.  Besides  these,  a  large  new  space 
called  the  Victoria  Park,  of  two  hundred  and  ninety  acres,  has  been 
laid  out  lately  in  the  East  part  of  London,  expressly  for  the  recrea- 
tion and  amusement  of  the  poorer  classes  who  are  confined  to  that 
part  of  the  town. 

You  see  what  noble  breathing-places  London  has,  within  its  own 
boundaries,  for  the  daily  health  and  recreation  of  its  citizens.  But 
these  by  no  means  comprise  all  the  rural  pleasures  of  its  inhabitants. 
There  are  three  other  magnificent  public  places  within  half  an  hour 
of  London,  which  are  also  enjoyed  daily  by  thousands  and  tens  of 
thousands.  I  mean  Hampton  Court,  Richmond  Park,  and  the 
National  Gardens  at  Kew. 

Hampton  Court  is  the  favorite  resort  of  the  middle  classes  on 
holidays,  and  a  pleasanter  sight  than  that  spot  on  such  occasions, — 
when  it  is  thronged  by  immense  numbers  of  citizens,  then  wives 
and  children,  with  all  the  riches  of  that  grand  old  palace,  its  picture- 
galleries,  halls,  and  splendid  apartments,  its  two  parks  and  its  im- 
mense pleasure-grounds  thrown  open  to  them,  is  not  easily  found. 
Indeed,  a  man  may  be  dull  enough  to  care  for  neither  palaces  nor 
parks,  for  neither  nature  nor  art,  but  he  can  scarcely  be  human,  or 
have  a  spark  of  sympathy  in  the  fortunes  of  his  race,  if  he  can  wan- 
der without  interest  through  these  magnificent  halls,  still  in  perfect 
order,  built  with  the  most  Mngly  prodigality  by  the  most  ambitious 
and  powerful  of  subjects — Wolsey  :  halls  that  were  afterwards  suc- 
cessively the  home  of  Henry  VIH.,  Elizabeth,  James,  Charles  and 
Cromwell ;  halls  where  Shakspeare  played  and  Sidney  wrote,  but 


THE  LONDON  PARKS. 


555 


which,  with  all  their  treasures  of  art,  are  now  the  people's  palace  and 
normal  school  of  enjoyment. 

I  am  neither  going  to  weary  you  with  catalogues  of  pictures  or 
dissertations  upon  palace  architecture.  But  I  must  give  you  one 
more  impression — that  of  the  magnificent  surroundings  of  Hampton 
Court.  Conjure  up  a  piece  of  country  of  diversified  rich  meadow 
surface,  some  five  or  six  miles  in  circuit ;  imagine,  around  the  pal- 
ace, some  forty  or  fifty  acres  of  gardens,  mostly  in  the  ancient  taste, 
with  pleached  alleys  (Queen  Mary's  bower  among  them),  sloping 
banks  of  soft  turf,  huge  orange  trees  in  boxes,  and  a  "wilderness" 
or  labyrinth  where  you  may  lose  yourself  in  the  most  intricate  per- 
plexity of  shrubs  ;  imagine  an  avenue  a  mile  and  a  quarter  long,  of 
the  most  gigantic  horse-chestnuts  you  ever  beheld,  with  long  vistas 
of  velvet  turf  and  highly-dressed  garden  scenery  around  them ;  ima- 
gine other  parts  of  the  part  where  you  see  on  all  sides,  only  great 
masses  and  groups  of  oaks  and  elms  of  centuries'  growth,  and  all  the 
freedom  of  luxuriant  nature,  with  a  broad  carpet  of  grass  stretching 
on  ah  sides ;  with  distant  portions  of  the  park  quite  wild-looking, 
dotted  with  great  hawthorn  trees  of  centuries'  growth,  with  the  tan- 
gled copse  and  fragrant  fern  which  are  the  belongings  of  our  own 
forests,  and  then  fill  up  the  scene  in  the  neighborhood  of  the  palaoe 
and  gardens  as  I  have  before  said,  on  a  holiday,  with  thousands  of 
happy  faces,  while  in  the  secluded  parts  of  the  park  the  timid  deer 
flits  before  you,  the  birds  stealthily  build  their  nests,  and  the  insect's 
hum  fills  the  silent  air,  and  you  have  some  faint  idea  of  the  value  of 
such  a  possession  for  the  population  of  a  great  city  to  pass  their 
holidays  in,  or  to  go  pic-nic-ing ! 

I  am  writing  you  a  long  letter,  but  the  parkomanie  is  upon  me, 
and  I  will  not  let  the  ink  dry  in  my  pen  without  a  word  about 
Eichmond  Great  Park — also  free  to  the  public,  and  also  within  the 
reach  of  the  Londoner  who  seeks  for  air  and  exercise.  Eichmond 
Great  Park  was  formerly  a  royal  hunting-ground,  but,  like  all  the 
parks  I  have  mentioned,  has  been  given  up  to  the  people — at  least 
the  free  enjoyment  of  it.  It  is  the  largest  of  all  the  parks  I  have 
described,  being  eight  miles  round,  and  containing  two  thousand 
two  hundred  and  fifty  acres.  It  is  a  piece  of  magnificent  forest  tract 
— open  forest,  with  grass,  tufts  of  hazel,  thorns  and  ferns,  the  surface 


556 


LETTERS  FROM  ENGLAND. 


gently  undulating,  and  dotted  with  grand  old  oaks — extremely  like 
what  you  see  on  a  still  larger  scale  in  Kentucky.  Its  solitude  and 
seclusion,  within  sight  of  London — are  almost  startling.  The  land 
is  high,  and  from  one  side  of  it  your  eye  wanders  over  the  valley  of 
Richmond — with  the  Thames — here  only  a  silvery  looking  stream 
winding  through  it — a  world-renowned  view,  and  one  whose  sylvan 
beauty  it  is  impossible  to  praise  too  highly.  Just  in  this  part  of  the 
park,  and  commanding  this  superb  view,  with  the  towers  of  Windsor 
Castle  in  the  distance  on  one  side,  and  the  dome  of  St.  Paul's  on  the 
other,  and  all  the  antique  sylvan  seclusion  of  the  old  wood  around 
it,  stands  a  modest  little  cottage — the  favorite  summer  residence  of 
Lord  John  Russell,  the  use  of  which  has  been  given  him  by  his  sove- 
reign. A  more  unambitious  looking  home,  and  one  better  calcu- 
lated to  restore  the  faculties  of  an  over-worked  premier,  after  a  day's 
toil  in  Downing-street,  it  would  be  impossible  to  conceive. 

I  drove  through  Richmond  Great  Park  in  the  carriage  of  the 
Belgian  minister,  and  his  accomplished  wife,  who  was  my  cicerone, 
stopped  the  coachman  for  a  moment  near  tbis  place,  in  order  that 
she  might  point  out  to  me  an  old  oak  that  had  a  story  to  tell.  "  It 
was  here — just  under  this  tree,"  she  added  (her  eyes  gleaming 
slightly  with  womanly  indignation  as  she  said  it),  ">  that  the  cruel 
Henry  stood,  and  saw  with  his  own  eyes,  the  signal  made  from  the 
Tower  of  London  (five  miles  off),  which  told  him  that  Anne  Boleyn 
was  at  that  moment  beheaded !"  I  thanked  God  that  oak  trees 
were  longer  lived  than  bad  monarchs,  and  that  modern  civilization 
would  no  longer  permit  such  butchery  in  a  christian  country. 

I  will  close  this  letter  with  only  a  single  remark.  We  fancy, 
not  without  reason,  in  New- York,  that  we  have  a  great  city,  and 
that  the  introduction  of  Croton  water,  is  so  marvellous  a  luxury  in 
the  way  of  health,  that  nothing  more  need  be  done  for  the  comfort 
of  half  a  million  of  people.  In  crossing  the  Atlantic,  a  young  New- 
Yorker,  who  was  rabidly  patriotic,  and  who  boasted  daily  of  the 
superiority  of  our  beloved  commercial  metropolis  over  every  city  on 
the  globe,  was  our  most  amusing  companion.  I  chanced  to  meet 
bim  one  afternoon  a  few  days  after  we  landed,  in  one  of  the  great 
parks  in  London,  in  the  midst  of  all  the  sylvan  beauty  and  human 
enjoyment,  I  Lave  attempted  to  describe  to  you.    He  threw  up  his 


THE  LONDON  FARES. 


557 


arms  as  he  recognized  me,  and  exclaimed — "  Good  heavens !  what  a 
scene,  and  /  took  some  Londoners  to  the  steps  of  the  City  Hall  last 
summer,  to  show  them  the  Park  of  New-York!"  I  consoled  him 
with  the  advice  to  be  less  conceited  thereafter  in  his  cockneyism, 
and  to  show  foreigners  the  Hudson  and  Niagara,  instead  of  the 
City  Hall  and  Bowling  Green.  But  the  question  may  well  be  asked, 
Is  New-\ork  really  not  rich  enough,  or  is  there  absolutely  not  land 
enough  m  America  to  give  our  citizens  public  parks  of  more  than 
ten  acres  ? 


TBX  END, 


» 


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